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Optics and Photonics

Grating Coupled COUPE for CPO, and Himax's Fragile FAU Moat
An engineering deep dive into TSMC's COUPE optical engine, explaining why the co-design position of Himax makes them critical near-term suppliers for…
 • Vikram Sekar
Why Optical Circuit Switching is Arista Networks’ Long-Term Problem
OCS is not a near term danger to Arista but can pose a structural threat to Arista’s “blue-box” networking moat in the long run.
 • Vikram Sekar
Lumentum: Laser Demand, OCS, CPO and Optical Scale-Up
$LITE’s enviable market position, big order of UHP lasers, OCS deployments, optical scale-up benefits, and what needs to happen for full optical…
 • Vikram Sekar
Interview: Indium Phosphide Lasers and Photonic Integration with Prof. Martijn Heck, TU Eindhoven
InP lasers, heterogeneous integration, wafer sizes and yield, supply chain and ecosystem, quantum dot lasers, and balancing utility of technology with…
 • Vikram Sekar
47:46
CPO Fears, Credo, and Role of AEC in 1.6T Networking
A rational, engineering-centric approach to understanding the future of active electrical cables in the era of CPO and 1.6T datacenter networking.
 • Vikram Sekar
A Complete Guide to Optical Transceiver Nomenclature
Decoding the alphabet soup of form factors, reach classifications, modulation schemes, and everything in between.
 • Vikram Sekar
Why Co-Packaged Optics Uses External Lasers Instead of Integrated Sources
On-chip lasers for CPO are the holy grail, but a near-term pragmatic approach is to keep lasers external for thermals and reliability. A look at the…
 • Vikram Sekar
Why Earth's Best Optical Fiber Can Only Be Made in Space
The incredible benefits of ZBLAN optical fiber and why it needs microgravity, and which companies are building in-space manufacturing and offering…
 • Vikram Sekar
The Silicon Photonics Moonshot: Group IV Integrated Lasers
An exploration of how group IV materials could solve the longstanding problem of silicon’s indirect bandgap, enabling monolithic photonic circuits with…
 • Vikram Sekar
Why Fathom Light uses LiDAR in Long Range Airborne Applications
Why it makes sense to use LiDAR technology instead of radar in unmanned drones.
 • Vikram Sekar
January 2025: Margin Notes on Optics
Broken undersea cables, imaging electrons with attosecond pulses, affordable lidar for automotive, peacock-inspired semiconductor lasers that cut steel…
 • Vikram Sekar
Why We Can't Build Lasers on Silicon
Silicon's Achilles Heel is that its indirect bandgap prevents the implementation of high performance integrated lasers which are much desired in…
 • Vikram Sekar
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