Wow, $IQE and $TSEM sign a multi year InP epiwafer deal. Remember I told you all IQE was important to Western optical supply chains back at $12? $MTSI had to go out of their way to secure their supply with IQE. Now there’s another critical deal with Tower Semi. https://t.co/4A5PAuA3PU

Why do I keep getting these questions!!! $XFAB is building a Silicon Photonics foundry alternative to $TSEM and $GFS. And has Europe backing it + $NVDA evaluations. It takes time... Like October 2026, should finish up development. Then 2027 production scaled into 2028 (mass production), since they've been working on it since 2023. Everyone thinks it’s a depressed automaker supplier right now. And thankfully with European names they tend to look at TTM revenue over forward growth. So somehow it’s leading EU’s efforts to create a $TSEM silicon photonics foundry + supply chain at ~€1.1B MC? That R&D directors from ASE cite + others as future CPO routes. I’m might just really early to a lot of things, but of course most of the risk/reward comes from taking a little leap of faith in seeing it commercialized. Otherwise people can take the de-risked route with Tower directly (which I also wrote a thesis on awhile back and also like).

Names like: - $ASX - Sumitomo Electric - $JBL - $VICR - $GFS - $AAOI - AlChip - $TSEM - $FN - Furukawa Electric - $CLS - $NBIS - $NOK - $AMKR - $LITE - $COHR Off the top of my head. So basically, AI exposure trading in the $10-100B range. Likely have compelling ROI right now compared to indexes or $ARM to $MRVL that ran quite a bit? (Just a disclosure, only have financial interest in NBIS/TSEM/AAOI above) I mention a lot of smaller ideas, but that’s just to chase outsized returns. Still feels like many of these have room to go.

I think my personal style of investing is a bit different, just some reflection: It's inherently discretionary, based on stuff markets don't know yet. And a culmination of life experiences? If you look at $AXTI, $RPI, $SIVE, $IQE and others. Lot of it is guessing on unstructured relationships then seeing if it's right or not down the line. $RPI is the perfect example: 1. Nobody really thought of Raspberry Pis for AI growth. Mainly people bought one or two just for class + education + hobbyist. 2. After OpenClaw, just noticed all my friends and people just buying Apple Mac Minis / RPIs for AI applications. 3. Found validation of that trend online with lot of people sharing video tutorials on AI orchestration with RPI. 4. AI was their ideal perfect growth vector, did some modeling, and thought it was compelling. Earnings comes out and I was right. Everyone in media was calling it a meme stock because there's nothing online that shows revenue growth from AI (was 14% forecasted revenue growth, turned out to be 58%, my projection was around 55%). So it was a mix of guessing next industry trend (AI using lightweight hardware instead of GPU clusters), real life trends, then revenue forecasting off my guess. For stuff like $AXTI: 1. Everyone called it a joke when I bought at ~$12. LLMs would hallucinate and say "hyperscalers/govs would have known about this by now and fixed this vulnerability with InP substrates" 2. Or would conflate very nuanced parts of InP substrate stack, where there's multiple different chokepoints in upstream processing. 3. So part of this was just discretionary based on what I've seen over InP substrate breakdowns, industry trends, etc. 4. Then also guessing the major supercycle was photonics (this was before everyone caught onto $LITE, and others). Or before you saw the $141B TAM projections from GS. 5. AXT owned 40% of InP supply chain, without them the supply chain just gets cripped). 6. All the "analysts" were forecasting steady InP substrate growth, few hundred million TAM, etc. or export controls. 7. Everyone kept trying to say $AXTI was overvalued based on TAM estimates. But if it's a few hundred million TAM you just think that's a joke and go into game theory over allocations. 8. Then I just had to guess, how much would this be worth if it were a NAND style bottleneck, what MC could it reach based on control, how much would hyperscalers price it as, etc. A lot of the current research outputs from Goldman Sachs, or earnings reports from the Epiwafer companies, were confirmed after I published my piece on AXT. If you did research back then, lot of the same material /framing wouldn't have come up. With stuff like $XFAB as you're seeing now, a lot of it is just pure guessing: 1. Not really any CPO materials, how much their MTP process makes in revenue, etc. Everyone online keeps saying they're not a photonics player. 2. But if you go through ASE docs or Gov websites, they all kinda cite XFAB as a major emerging player here. 3. $NVDA also evaluating them right now (maybe it's successful who knows). 4. No clear revenue around this area because their main silicon photonics process is still precommercial, but if you guess it's trying to create a EU supply chain to compete with $TSEM, once pre-commercial shifts to commercial, maybe similar but less volume contracts? 5. Then just seeing updates over the next few months to see if anything confirms this thesis guess. _ I think a lot of information discovery still can be done with LLMs I'm seeing online. But it's also really hard to make a bunch of unstructured inferences based on unrelated material or even just trends you're seeing in real life. So probably better to just do what's standard, eg. do valuation forecasting based on current numbers Stuff like $AAOI, if they're projecting $471m/M h1 2027 and you see MC at $12B, probably undervalued might be a good idea to go long for next years. Stuff like Samsung Electronics is easier, see what people are modeling for operating profits for 2027, 2028 then just seeing if it's undervalued or not at current levels. Maybe something harder is $JBL. I haven't really seen any great volume numbers around 1.6T LRO, but you can just make a guess on how popular that might be then project how that might impact current MCs. Or picking just good names everyone kinda agrees like $TSM, $INTC, $MRVL is also solid. So a lot of things is just building up your life skills then applying that to markets. I don't think it's that can be taught with courses and stuff. Of course, much of what I'm doing is just high conviction inference based on unconnected parts. Could always be wrong.

Okay... just some more weekend shower thoughts about $XFAB. I still feel like it could be the next $TSEM, just early stage at a $1.4B MC? They kinda leapfrogged current gens (which $TSEM are getting volume from) to compete for H2 2027 CPO scale up inflection point ($ASX docs cite Xfab (aka. photonixFAB) as focusing on CPO) By building out some black magic MTP (transfer printing) architecture for lasers w/ other stuff like TFLN. Basically next-gen integration IP, they're still behind on yields, sure. But $NVDA evaluating it for transceivers/switches to see if it can volume ramp. That $NOK sets the specifications/assembly for. (nvidia invested in nokia for this these switches/networking too btw). And if their MTP supply chain works... (eg. with Smartphotonics providing lasers, EU players doing assembly). It basically volume ramps with $NVDA just like why Nvidia signed long term agreements with $TSEM? Downside risk? Already below replacement book value, can always go lower yeah, but typically to a certain point. Maybe more CHIPS act subsidies next few months from chips act 2. If it doesn't go well there's SiC (152% Y/Y Growth, 195% Y/Y SiC wafer shipment growth)/GaN power semi upside. Europeans /LLMs will say "oh evaluations doesn't mean it's a future contract!". This is kinda different since the European Union is behind this effort and $XFAB for soverign photonic supply chains. Not your typical company + hyperscaler evaluation, since $NVDA wants to be nice to Europe's regulators. They'd prob be pissed if nvidia just stayed in US/Taiwan/China. So if they can make this MTP black magic work with mass production, feels almost for sure nvidia/nokia volume ramp on some tiny $1.4B silicon photonics foundry or at least throw them a bone with smaller contracts. In terms of timelines, maybe just a months early since it volume ramps H2 2027/H1 2028 (which happens to be in line with CPO scale up timelines)... Or just unknown because they named their project something stupid like photonixfab? Like XFAB Photonics would have been better? so institutions/screeners can connect the dots when looking at CPO silicon photonic foundry players? Automotive should also coming out of a slump medium term, sped up by self-driving (TSM Chairmain comments yesterday said ai automotive was TSM's growth vector alongside robotics). So their core business also should pick up speed too medium term. Obviously markets/europeans want a "Nvidia signs $2B+ contract, XFab volume ramping 2027!" But by then it will be a $9B+ company and you miss out on all the upside. And especially since everyone analyst/institution is blind to volume expectations for these.... Normally don't invest in companies in evaluation stages, but this just seems very de-risked by EU sovereignty + Gov backing, and you have Nvidia + Nokia there for volumes if they can make the IP work. I think markets are probably missing something here... there's almost 0 value being assigned to being CPO exposure in Europe as their long term upside.

Tbh $XFAB lowkey reminds me of early $TSEM. Just sub <$2B MC. You basically never find a company with $NVDA and $NOK actively validating your pre-commercial silicon photonics foundry… (photonixFAB) While getting CHIPS act/Gov grants to subsidize capex. While leading the Europe’s effort to build a photonics supply chain. Feels like that alone would justify valuations… but you get the power semi SiC/GaN operations for free too and all its assets. CHIPS act 2 is coming out tomorrow, and $XFAB is listed in the photonics blueprints. Did I miss something? Or did markets miss something?

$XFAB (photonics + power semis) is an interesting long idea at $1.28B MC, that I took positions in. Given EU CHIPS act 2 is today as the catalyst for European photonics players. > 800 VDC power semi exposure to $NVDA push through $NVTS + $POWI > Silicon Photonics / CPO exposure with $NVDA as evaluation stage for high volume manufacturing (optical transceivers/switches) > The only high-volume SiC foundry in the US. > One of the critical MEMS foundries > ~1.29 P/B, which was around what $SOI was sitting at when I went long. Depressed valuations due to legacy drag > ~6.5-8.5 fwd p/e 2028 personal est. > backstopped by Government: - EU CHIPS act, $128M Euros - US CHIPS act $50M PMT (department of commerce). With likely more coming (just signals critical importance to Western supply chains). So at a certain point with all the grants, they’re just getting the capex funded by the Governments. EU CHIPS act 2 is coming out this week, and I’m gonna go ahead and guess $XFAB might get included given they were before, and this package is specifically targeting photonics. ~$1.3B MC seems compelling to me if it can pull a Soitec reversal (low p/b, very high growth segments, auto legacy drag). As for the $NVDA silicon photonics relationships it’s under “photonixFAB”. Markets probably missed this silicon photonics relationship (like $TSEM when I went long) with Nvidia since XFab leads this… Just under a different name. For power semis, XFAB is named for SiC + $NVTS. In PCN-22181, $POWI explicitly names XFAB as its foundry.  Given its exposure to power semis and photonics as growth, low P/B, gov backstop (of course dyor, just sharing my personal thoughts) Thought it personally seemed compelling.

Wow, 400,000 followers! Thank you everyone. I find it fun to share ideas with everyone for free from $TSEM to $AAOI. And especially if they end up directionally right + help others build their own conviction. https://t.co/DeEnV6SAkq

Photonics is nuanced and using ChatGPT/Gemini makes you miss all of it: 1. $SIVE is actually a chokepoint and partially a bottleneck. The reason it's a chokepoint is leading CPO/optical hyperscaler players go through Sivers, likely: Ayar. Celestial. Lightmatter. Lightelligence. Poet. If you take out Sivers, you literally can't make some of their products + delay their roadmap by years. As many are sole/primary source but are heading the direction on multi-source. As for the bottleneck argument: Win Semi is the bottleneck for scaling laser production. But... the nuance is when you have capacity allocated for the next few years. You become part of the bottleneck itself if players fight you for allocation of finished lasers. That's the nuance people miss with capacity allocation dynamics. It's like saying $SNDK is not part of the NAND bottleneck when Kioxia makes all of it. But when Sandisk has the ultimate control of output supply, they become the bottleneck + have all the pricing power. Sivers controls output supply of CW lasers given allocations, and as seen with $LITE earnings, CW laser is currently bottlenecked as everyone seems to be stuck producing EMLs. 2. Like how LLMs always uses em-dashes. You can tell when people use AI when they always use the same "CW is a dumb interchangeable laser" argument or compare "power" specs after conflating different architectures. That's why your "analysts" using AI will get this wrong over and over. There's CW lasers... and then there's a specific architectural design that Sivers achieves with DFB lasers. If you compare power specs with $LITE vs. Sivers, Lumentum wins in isolation. But they're completely different laser architectures. All the leading CPO players like Ayar, chose $SIVE for an architectural reason for high power, low thermal, laser arrays. $JBL 1.6T LRO also made one of the most dramatic moats cited by their fireside chat, using Sivers lasers. If you think CW lasers are interchangeable with Sumitomo/Furukawa, and others. And can be plug-and-play... i don't know what to tell you? Again: $SIVE makes architecturally unique CW lasers for leading CPO players. 3. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this: $SIVE for 2024-2025 has been going through development contracts. People using TTM revenue or former P/S metrics are using completely the wrong metrics, when there's volume ramp in 2027. It's the same with $AAOI which volume ramps in H1 2027. $AEHR which volume ramps after qualification. $LPK that volume ramps after qualification. This is just missing qualification cycles in semiconductors and how to model financials currently. As for the $LITE comparisons (which was also my long last year): $LITE literally started off selling laser dies before acquisition of Cloud Lite and other downstream optical engine components. This is where $SIVE is at today with starting off in the laser chokepoint for CPO: People are modeling laser revenue off very isolated TAM projections. Meanwhile Sivers is targeting M&A to expand revenue for TAM projections. This is not a simple component FAU + ramp valuation modeling over with a Taiwanese company. Since Laser companies like $LITE, $COHR are known to downstream expand to make their lasers more valuable, then vertically integrate (fabs, assembly) afterward. Again, Sivers worked with Ayar and these types of companies before they all became billion dollar companies. I have high conviction knowing they know what to acquire down the ELS/optical engine stack + pluggable transceiver for TAM expansion. It's just annoying when I get people who don't understand the nuances backseat commenting wrong things about my longs. I got the same thing about $AXTI is not a bottleneck! InP isn't needed! China! back at $14. Now it's $140 I got the same thing about $AAOI "is going down 50%!" back at $65. or "AOI management is shady at $30". Now it's $170 I got the "there's nothing new with $SOI" back at $45. Now it's $170. I think I'm one of the few who actually understands the nuances with photonics, since I did call out $LITE, $TSEM, Innolight, $AXTI, $AAOI, $SOI, that outperformed both photonics markets and overall markets over the past year. And now I'm long on $SIVE.

I don't post dollar amounts because they don't matter. What matters is return %. Speaking of that... YTD: 3840.39%. I'm probably the only one in the world. Who called out multiple names that 10x'd in a short timeframe. Do you remember these thesis anon? 1. $AXTI 2. $SIVE 3. $AAOI 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB 16. $SNDK 17. $SIMO 18. $VPG 19. $TSEM 20. $ARM 21. $MRVL 22. $INTC 23. $LPK 24. $NBIS 25. $MU They're all up 100-1000%+, because... 1. I post a thesis. 2. People can see how the stock performs months later. 3. They turn out right (thesis validation) because they're up hundreds of percent + hold their returns. I really dislike the traditional X influencer who shows large dollar amounts or fancy watches/cars/private jets. Then use that to get more by selling expensive subscriptions rather than through market returns. So trying to set a new trend off pure information discovery/synthesis from free thesis posts and the results that follow in terms of return percentages. TLDR: Market returns in terms of percentages matter the most to validate a thesis. Not the dollar amount made.

Not everyone on X can do a did you listen anon. With triple digit returns on everything like $TSEM they went long on. https://t.co/7jGCpZWRcd

Just in case you want to frontrun the next major catalyst: $NVDA June 1 Computex/GTC Taipei keynote should be heavily bullish Taiwan optical ecosystem? Just like when I went long on $TSEM and others in Nvidia’s US event. Shunsin, Foci, Nextronics, MSScorps, and a lot of my Nvidia photonics ecosystem port might be critical mentions or have indirect catalysts there.

I'm 100% sure if I met all you "photonic memory" experts in real life. 498 out of 500 of you couldn't explain CXL memory pooling or KV cache infrastructure and what $PENG actually does to derive revenue off that. This is why I'm seeing all these random $RKLB, $HIMS, or non technical AI experts on my timeline now. Backseat commenting completely wrong things about M7U MOCVD capex and $TSEM that aren't related. Or conflating every single term like an $SMCI integrator with photonics IP. Then just pitching buzzwords every under every one of my posts.

Leopold Aschenbrenner is a legend, but I'm not quite sure he can beat 3152.77% YTD in the Serenity Awareness fund. That being said, I've hit 23 different longs this year with 100-1000%+ YTD. 1. $AXTI 2. $AAOI 3. $SIVE 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB 16. $SNDK 17. $SIMO 18. $VPG 19. $TSEM 20. $ARM 21. $MRVL 22. $INTC 23. $LPK Do you remember all of these anon?

What an insane day for photonics. $SIVE up 31.3% $TSEM up 23.1% $AAOI 20.01%. It feels like a lot… but this just means you’re early to the next supercycle and there’s a lot of room to go. Lot of people on X ask what’s next after $SNDK? Here they are. https://t.co/jTeHpYtf0n

Just in case you were wondering $TSEM reported extra prepayment ($290M) to secure capacity. Downstream foundry capacity squeeze directly translates to an immense demand for raw substrates upstream with $SOI (more revenue). My optical picks are very interconnected. https://t.co/4vIAvS1jOl

And exactly 2 months later. $TSEM is trading at $250+ post earnings. The vast majority of my picks keep making ATHs every day after there’s more time for the thesis to play out. Did you listen anon? https://t.co/rGXFKwPC51

Random CPO related names I like: - $SIVE - Foci (3363) - $TSEM - Browave (3163) - PCL (4977) - $AXTI - Msscorps (6830) - $IQE - Shunsin (6451) - Furukawa Electric (5801) - $MTSI - Nextronics (8417) - $LITE - $COHR - FitTech (6706) - $GFS - $ASX - LandMark (3081) - $SOI Disclosure: I own most, not all though.

Here's a bunch of random 30 US-available random stocks I like today and why: 1. $INTC - America's hope for foundry, national security 2. $MRVL - scales rev from future maia asics and add ons like cpo, they do everything lost count 3. $TSM - backbone of semis/ai 4. $COHR - They do everything vertically integrated + captures optical cycle 5. $RKLB - the final frontier of space will be around 5 years from now and 20 years from now. 6. $DRAM - memory exposure for samsung/sk hynix 7. $AVGO - hyperscalers dont like nvidia gpu tax 8. $AMZN - nobody can compete against the overnight shipping of toilet paper. robotics will lower opex over time 9. $ARM - AGI CPUs scale revenue quite a bit over the next decade 10. $TSEM - you're going to need a foundry for light based stuff 11. $IBIT - bitcoin, we all know by now 12. $NBIS - i think it's the next AWS. Also they do self-driving cars with uber, own scaling DB companies, data labeling. It's almost like a mini Google. 13. $GOOGL - youtube is not going away, gemini is great. they're vertically integrated with TPUs and fund buildout with operating income so i like it. 14. $AMKR - super facilities coming online in late 2027-2028. benefits from made in america 15. $HOOD - i dont like short term, but long term i'm a fan of Robinhood since they captured retail + have more products like banking, etc that they're scaling up. product innovation is wild. 16. $CRCL - I happen to really like stablecoins and see them as the future for both payments/holding (depends on clarity act) 17. $META - people aren't going to stop using instagram or whatsapp, or others anytime soon. 18. $LITE - $GOOGL TPU exposure decently high part of BOM. As long as Google's AI program keeps running I think $LITE will do well. 19. $LPTH - Germanium and China export controls will always be an issue so US made engineered alternatives will always be important 20. $FN - Someone needs to assemble optical stuff 21. $JBL - same as above, but added with ip from Intel's SiPh acqusition so might end up like innolight? 22. $MP - American rare earths program is extremely important, similar to $INTC national security risks 23. $HIMS - Okay here me out they just acquired a ton of companies, and at $19 they have global DTC channel. short sellers really hate this company, but I think it's actually promising as a contrarian long 24. $SMTC - LRO/LPO transition 25. $POWL - US alternative to hammond for switchgear DC type bottleneck 26. $VPG - Humanoids will be a thing down the road maybe 2027-2028, this makes the sensors. 27. $MOG.A - Feels like i see them everywhere in robotics, to spacex supply chains 28. $MSFT - At $375, one day we'll look back and see this as a buying opportunity. 29. $CVX - oil might crash after war but these oil companies are going to be extremely important, especially when Venezulea is a goldmine. 30. $XLU - i think rate cuts might be back online, we need power/grid for AI so these names will always be improtant from $CEG to $NEE Just throwing out other thoughts aside from $AAOI and $AEHR.

I'm long $TSEM, the $TSM of photonics. My top two picks for CPO are $SOI and Tower Semi. Given the $NVDA GTC catalyst on new photonic related architecture next week: I expect Tower Semi to get a huge catalyst. Nvidia laready directly collaborated with Tower to scale 1.6T silicon photonics last month (hint hint for GTC), likely pushing the downstream players to use it. And now, Tower is the leading supplier of 1.6T SiPh PICs and the primary foundry for scale-up CPO architectures. (the other being global foundries) From my forward est: 2028 Forward P/E: ~16.8x to ~18.1x (Tower set a target $2.84B revenue by 2028, with ~31.7% operating margin, ~$750M in net profit) The thing to note is over 70% of their planned SiPh capacity is already reserved through 2028. And photonics haven't even ramped up yet. So, I expect them to strongly beat earning projections due to extreme photonics scaling + allocations price hikes that's not modeled into projections. Also, $TSEM is heavily de-risked by 70% of capacity already being reserved. MC is likely due to $TSEM being a very obscure upstream player in the photonics supply chain. But I expect the $NVDA GTC conference to be that catalyst that brings it to premium valuations. I'm long $TSEM as an asymmetrical upside for upstream photonics foundry layer.

Changed my mind about Soitec ( $SLOIF ) and took a sizable position ~43 for CPO exposure. $NVDA GTC next week biggest catalyst pushing photonics and this architecture. ~1.5B euros MC. Trading at 1x book value and ~2x P/S (very depressed valuations) Genuine monopoly over substrates side for CPO (typically very premium valuations for photonics + even extra premium for monopoly status) Algos and analysts might get confused over market share but it’s an actual monopoly over SOI substrates since they give licenses to other players like Shin Etsu for diversification sake eg. $TSM doesn’t like just 1. I don’t think institutions will wait until next year to frontrun these names like Soitec or $TSEM (and most probably haven’t even heard of these names like $AXTI yet) This timing would be buying the likely bottom of the depressed smartphone cycle, while getting full upside of CPO mid-late 2027 + $NVDA GTC catalyst next week. I personally think it’s a 3x from here so I went long.