Ideas
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
Broadcom's FY28 AI revenue target of $230B implies roughly $30 of FY28 EPS, making the stock look highly attractive at around 12x FY28 earnings if they execute against their secured supply forecasts.
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
The author notes AAOI benefits from both the 800G/1.6T transceiver overlap and the severe laser shortage because they fabricate a significant amount of their own InP lasers.
The author notes AAOI benefits from both the 800G/1.6T transceiver overlap and the severe laser shortage because they fabricate a significant amount of their own InP lasers.
Risk: Broadcom and other competitors are aggressively tripling capacity, which could eventually alleviate shortage pricing and compress margins when new supply comes online.
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
Broadcom's commentary that EML and CW laser demand is 'far surpassing supply' provides strong validation for LITE's tight supply environment and pricing power.
Broadcom's commentary that EML and CW laser demand is 'far surpassing supply' provides strong validation for LITE's tight supply environment and pricing power.
Risk: Industry-wide capacity expansions will eventually qualify and come online, meaning today's shortage pricing will not last forever.
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
SMTC benefits from the entire coexistence roadmap, having optical exposure through drivers/TIAs/HieFo, as well as massive copper exposure which Broadcom confirmed will continue to scale.
SMTC benefits from the entire coexistence roadmap, having optical exposure through drivers/TIAs/HieFo, as well as massive copper exposure which Broadcom confirmed will continue to scale.
Risk: Copper's viability at higher speeds remains physically constrained by distance, eventually forcing a harder transition to optics for larger scale-up clusters.
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
Broadcom's investments in stretching copper signals via AECs and retimers confirms that copper will survive into the 200G per lane generation, directly validating CRDO's copper exposure.
Broadcom's investments in stretching copper signals via AECs and retimers confirms that copper will survive into the 200G per lane generation, directly validating CRDO's copper exposure.
Risk: The transition to NPO/CPO for longer rack distances could cap the total addressable market for copper-based AECs over time.
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
The author explicitly calls out VECO as an upstream beneficiary selling equipment into the massive industry-wide factory capacity ramp for EML, CW, and VCSEL lasers.
The author explicitly calls out VECO as an upstream beneficiary selling equipment into the massive industry-wide factory capacity ramp for EML, CW, and VCSEL lasers.
Risk: Capital expenditure cycles in semiconductor equipment can be highly cyclical and dependent on sustained downstream hyperscaler demand.
crux_capital_
Independent Photonics & AI Infrastructure Researcher
Broadcom's Tomahawk Ultra Ethernet switch is seeing stronger-than-expected uptake in the scale-up network, allowing hyperscalers to build custom accelerators around Ethernet rather than proprietary fa
Broadcom's Tomahawk Ultra Ethernet switch is seeing stronger-than-expected uptake in the scale-up network, allowing hyperscalers to build custom accelerators around Ethernet rather than proprietary fabrics like NVLink.
Risk: NVIDIA's ecosystem remains deeply entrenched, and Ethernet's latency/bandwidth capabilities may still lag NVLink for the most demanding frontier model training clusters.
This newsletter, published September 03, 2026,
features crux_capital_
discussing AVGO, AAOI, LITE, SMTC, CRDO, VECO, NVDA.
7 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.
Speakers:
crux_capital_
· Tickers:
AVGO,
AAOI,
LITE,
SMTC,
CRDO,
VECO,
NVDA