Silicon Photonics
Active BottleneckThe substrate layer beneath all CPO architectures
Active Bottleneck — 100% of Next-Gen AI DCs Use Photonics-SOI
Thesis
Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) wafers are the substrate for silicon photonics chips — the photonic integrated circuits inside every CPO module. Soitec's Photonics-SOI is used in 100% of next-gen AI data centers. This is a functional monopoly on a critical substrate layer. Morgan Stanley quietly accumulated 6.5% of the float after Serenity's SOI thesis, validating the institutional discovery pattern.
Picks in this Sector (2 active)
Soitec's Photonics-SOI is deployed in 100% of next-generation AI data centers, per their own EVP. That single quote defines the thesis — this is a functional monopoly on the substrate layer required for silicon photonic chips (the foundational layer of CPO). When Serenity published the SOI thesis at ~$40, institutions were publishing analyst reports saying it was overvalued. One month later Morgan Stanley quietly picked up 6.5% of the float. Up 200%+ since the original thesis.
Sivers is the bleeding-edge independent DFB/CW laser supplier for Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) — the next-generation photonic architecture being deployed by every major hyperscaler. While LITE and COHR are fully allocated to NVIDIA, Sivers has emerged as the Tier-1 laser source for AMD CPO (via GFS), Marvell Celestial, Jabil 1.6T LRO, Ayar, and likely Apple silicon photonics. At a ~$1.5B MC vs. LITE at $60B+, the valuation gap is extraordinary for what is essentially the same critical chokepoint in the laser supply chain. CHIPS Act funding and a pending NASDAQ listing unlock US institutional capital that fund mandates previously barred.