Physics / mechanism
Co-packaged optics (CPO) integrates optical I/O directly with the switch/compute ASIC, replacing pluggable optical modules. The market is forecast to reach ~$5.5B by 2027 and >$20B by 2036 (37% CAGR per IDTechEx). The defining contest is material class for the in-package waveguides and bonds: polymer (cheap, low-CTE-mismatch, but Telcordia-qualification-unproven for production AI interconnect) vs inorganic (TFLN, BTO, SiN — higher cost, higher reliability bar, foundry-compatible). Real volume deployment is 2027-2028 timeframe. NVIDIA, Broadcom, and the major foundries each have distinct platform strategies.
Competitive landscape
Adjacent material classes / techniques.
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.
Primer (web-enriched)
Sourced 2026-05-02. See sources/web/ for full citations.
Co-packaged optics (CPO) integrates optical I/O directly with the switch/compute ASIC, replacing pluggable optical modules. The market is forecast to reach ~$5.5B by 2027 and >$20B by 2036 (37% CAGR per IDTechEx). The defining contest is material class for the in-package waveguides and bonds: polymer (cheap, low-CTE-mismatch, but Telcordia-qualification-unproven for production AI interconnect) vs inorganic (TFLN, BTO, SiN — higher cost, higher reliability bar, foundry-compatible). Real volume deployment is 2027-2028 timeframe. NVIDIA, Broadcom, and the major foundries each have distinct platform strategies.
Further reading
- Co-Packaged Optics 2026-2036 (IDTechEx) — tier 2
- CPO Book (SemiAnalysis) — tier 5
- CPO market and tech update (Cignal AI, Feb 2025) — tier 5
- CPO market to grow at 37% CAGR (Semiconductor Today) — tier 5
Merged from root duplicate (co-packaged-optics.md at concepts/ root, 2026-06-10)
Co-Packaged Optics (CPO)
Integrating the optical engine (photonic IC plus driver/TIA) into the same package as the switch or accelerator ASIC, replacing pluggable optics to cut the energy-per-bit and reach of the electrical link at the package edge. The convergence point of silicon photonics, advanced packaging and Chiplets; central to the AI-fabric and switch-bandwidth roadmaps that 11 active theses bet on (packaging, foundry, interconnect, photonic-compute).