IN Brief:
- PhotonLink spans light generation, shaping, guidance, and detection for CPO, NPO, and chip-to-chip optical architectures.
- Coherent reports more than ten customer engagements each in CPO and NPO, plus more than five chip-to-chip programmes.
- The company is expanding 6-inch InP and specialty-fibre capacity ahead of an expected revenue ramp in late 2026.
Coherent has launched PhotonLink, an integrated optics platform combining lasers, silicon photonics, precision optics, specialty fibre, detectors, assembly, and test capability for co-packaged, near-packaged, and emerging chip-to-chip optical links.
The platform is aimed at AI datacentre architectures where optical connectivity is moving closer to compute and switching silicon. Rather than presenting a single transceiver or optical engine, Coherent is grouping technologies across the optical path, from generating light through shaping and guiding it to final detection, while offering both components and integrated assemblies.
PhotonLink includes indium-phosphide continuous-wave lasers, modulators and semiconductor optical amplifiers, VCSEL arrays, silicon photonics devices, isolators, micro-optics, specialty fibres, fibre-attach units, and detectors. Coherent can configure those technologies into external laser sources, precision fibre assemblies, and optical modules adapted to different system architectures.
Conventional pluggable modules keep optics at the front panel, where replacement and thermal management are relatively straightforward. The electrical path between the switch ASIC and optical module becomes harder to scale as lane rates increase. Near-packaged and co-packaged optics shorten that electrical reach by moving optical conversion closer to the switch, while introducing tighter mechanical, thermal, manufacturing, and service constraints.
Coherent reports more than ten customer engagements in co-packaged optics and more than ten in near-packaged optics, with anchor customers and long-term agreements in both areas. The company also has more than five engagements in chip-to-chip optical connectivity. Those figures place PhotonLink alongside active customer programmes rather than presenting it solely as a collection of technologies awaiting a market.
Combining the component stack under one supplier can reduce the number of interfaces that system developers have to manage between lasers, photonic devices, fibre, optics, assembly, and test. It does not remove the physical constraints of co-packaged optics. Optical coupling, connector strategy, laser reliability, thermal load, test access, manufacturing tolerances, and field service remain difficult around expensive high-power switching silicon.
Manufacturing capacity is being expanded alongside the product platform. Coherent says it has shipped more than 300 million indium-phosphide lasers and more than one billion InP and gallium-arsenide photodetectors. It is increasing 6-inch InP and specialty-fibre capacity to support PhotonLink, with revenue expected to begin ramping in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The breadth of the portfolio also allows Coherent to support several optical-integration routes without depending on one package format. Co-packaged optics, near-packaged optics, and chip-to-chip links address related bandwidth and electrical-reach constraints but position optical devices at different physical points in the system.
That flexibility will be important while datacentre architectures continue to evolve. A common manufacturing and component base can support customers moving between packaging approaches, but each implementation still requires different compromises around thermal design, serviceability, optical loss, electrical reach, and package density.
The company’s dedicated PhotonLink portfolio spans generation, shaping, guidance, and detection functions, including InP devices, GaAs VCSELs, silicon-photonics modulators, coupling optics, fibre assemblies, and several detector technologies. This breadth shifts the commercial challenge away from proving that the individual technologies work and towards qualifying complete assemblies at the yields and volumes required by large AI systems.
PhotonLink was launched during ECOC 2026 in Málaga, with the first revenue ramp expected before the end of the year. Customer qualification, assembly yield, test coverage, and repeatable volume production will determine how much advantage Coherent gains from bringing a large part of the optical chain into one manufacturing platform.
