Lasers sold out until 2029 as Soitec controls 95% of silicon photonics wafers
demian_ai · x · 2026-10-13
The silicon photonics supply chain is far tighter than most realize:
- LITE's CEO said this week it can't meet 70% of demand for some products through next year — six months ago he was quoting 2028. Lasers are sold out into early 2029.
- The upstream bottleneck is wafers: photonic chips need silicon-on-insulator to keep light trapped, and one French company, Soitec, makes 95% of the 300mm SOI wafers every expanding fab depends on.
- Money has already moved: one photonics foundry took $290M in customer prepayments in a single quarter to reserve 2027 capacity, and Soitec is signing multi-year reservations with deposits and fixed prices, guiding photonics wafer shipments to 2.5–3x last year.
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