Together with TSMC, Darfon is moving into optical communications. Dali Guang Lin Enping is too honest! He even said publicly that CPO is still a long way off, and the stock price plunged 7%.

Optical lens leader Dah Li-Guang (Dahli Optics) has recently become a market focus after entering key AI data center technologies, “Co-Packaged Optics” (CPO). However, at the earnings call, the company’s chairman, Lin En-ping, personally cooled expectations, admitting that the relevant plans “can’t yet be called CPO.” He said it is still in the pre-sampling preparation stage, and at least another one to two years are needed before mass production. The market quickly adjusted its expectations, and the stock price plunged about 7% on the spot.

Lin En-ping admitted on the earnings call that it’s “still a long way off,” and the CPO timeline is at least 1 to 2 years

At the earnings call, Lin En-ping said directly that what Dah Li-Guang is currently investing in is actually FAU (Fiber Array Unit)—the end components in the CPO supply chain—and it still can’t be called CPO. Its current priority role is to provide optical components, and it has not even started sampling, let alone mass production.

He noted that FAU components require extremely high alignment accuracy, and the key equipment is developed in-house by Dah Li-Guang. The deciding factor is whether they can achieve “more precise, faster alignment.” In addition, even after sampling is completed, the products still must go through customer qualification, yield ramp-up, and capacity buildout. The overall schedule still requires at least one to two years, and the equipment side will also need to be adjusted in sync.

On the technology roadmap, Dah Li-Guang is developing key components such as prisms (prism) and collimators (collimator) for silicon photonics, and is also moving into optical transmission module areas. In the future, it is not ruled out that it could expand from single components into module products. However, Lin En-ping also admitted that in the optical communications space there are already strong players, and what Dah Li-Guang is currently focusing on is emerging technology opportunities such as “fast alignment.”

Dah Li-Guang’s talks and collaboration with TSMC, with the stock price nearing 3000 yuan

It is worth noting that just two days earlier, the market’s AI narrative for Dah Li-Guang was still extremely optimistic. It was reported externally that the company is cooperating with TSMC to enter CPO technology, and by securing a position in the AI optical communications supply chain, it even declined an additional order from Apple, driving the stock price at one point to approach the 3000-yuan integer level, reaching a high in more than a year.

(Dah Li-Guang rejects Apple’s additional order, expands into the AI space and cooperates with TSMC on CPO, and the stock price nearly hits three thousand yuan)

At the time, the market expected Dah Li-Guang to transition from a smartphone camera lens supplier into a supplier of critical optical components for AI data centers, becoming the next growth engine. Coupled with upgrades to high-end iPhone camera lenses, variable aperture products, and demand for future foldable devices, both the fundamentals and the narrative gained double support, driving the stock to make a strong push in the short term. However, as more conservative progress signals were released at the earnings call, the market quickly re-evaluated its CPO timeline and contributions, and funds showed clear rotation.

CPO and silicon photonics: the next key battleground for AI data centers

So-called CPO (Co-Packaged Optics)—co-packaging optics—means putting an optical engine or photonic integrated circuit, along with an exchange ASIC or other computing chips, into the same package/carrier board to shorten telecom signal paths, reduce power consumption, and increase bandwidth density. It is an important direction for high-speed interconnects in AI data centers. Silicon photonics, meanwhile, is a technology that uses silicon fabrication processes to implement components such as optical waveguides, modulators, and photodetectors on a chip; it is often one of the core underlying technologies for CPO.

This article joins hands with TSMC to enter optical communications, and Dah Li-Guang’s Lin En-ping is too honest! He reveals that CPO is still far away, and the stock price crashes 7%—first appearing on Lian News ABMedia.