Corning, Qualcomm and Lumentum to Showcase High-Density Optical Chip Links at ECOC 2026

GlobalFoundries Inc. is expanding its photonics presence through a new partnership with SMART Photonics. The collaboration will offer an open-access manufacturing service combining silicon and indium phosphide photonics, helping customers develop next-generation optical products that move data faster and more efficiently. The move builds on accelerating demand for optical networking technologies in AI and data center applications: in the second quarter of 2026, GlobalFoundries' communications infrastructure and data center business recorded 62% year-over-year revenue growth, its seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. The company works with four of the five largest optical transceiver players and is moving toward 1.6 terabit and 3.2 terabit optical modules, with production of its 200-gigabit-per-lane technology already underway. The financial contribution from the SMART relationship will likely take some time to show up in results, though strong AI and optical networking demand is expected to boost the photonics portfolio in the long run.

Analog Devices Chief Financial Officer Rich Puccio said the company expects demand strength across its portfolio to support double-digit growth into fiscal 2027, citing a broad industrial recovery alongside continued momentum in data centers, aerospace and defense, and automated test equipment. Speaking with JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur at the firm's 2026 U.S. All Stars Conference in London, Puccio said aerospace and defense, automated test equipment, and data centers account for roughly 30% of the company's business and have been growing at high rates. The aerospace and defense business was nearing a $2 billion annualized revenue run rate as of the fiscal third-quarter exit rate, up from approximately $1 billion a year earlier, while the automated test equipment business was operating at an annualized run rate of about $1 billion and the data center business is running at about $2 billion annually, split roughly equally between power and optical products and growing about 100% year over year. Puccio declined to provide a mid-quarter bookings update or formal guidance for the January quarter but said Analog Devices expects to perform better than its normal seasonal pattern, in which the first fiscal quarter is typically down in the mid-single digits sequentially. He said more than half of the company's industrial subsegments remain double digits below the consumption line, that the company guided for a record gross margin in the fourth quarter, and that its pending acquisition of Alif Semiconductor is not expected to be material to revenue or costs in the near term, with the business more likely to ramp beginning around 2028.

Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd has had its Toucan Gen6x16 PCI Express retimer officially added to the PCI-SIG Integrators List after completing testing at the PCI-SIG Compliance Workshop, where it achieved formal PCI-SIG 6.x compliance at 64.0 GT/s. The listing validates Toucan's interoperability, electrical compliance and protocol credentials in high-speed connectivity and reduces qualification and customer integration risk. Toucan uses Credo's PILOT software to combine PCIe 6.0 with DSP-based SerDes technology, deep diagnostics and low-power operation, targeting high-performance computing and artificial intelligence environments, and Credo says the architecture aligns with PCIe 7.0 roadmaps. Credo also points to its recent acquisition of DustPhotonics, which adds silicon photonics to its DSP, SerDes and system integration stack and is expected to make the combined optical portfolio a significant growth driver in FY27. Credo faces competitive pressure as other retimer vendors pursue PCI-SIG compliance, and adoption timing depends on GPUs, CPUs and platform vendors shifting to the new standard.