Optical Modules — Numbers Bomb

aiinframap-verified numbers in bold. Field-observed / single-source numbers are flagged and never asserted as our verification.

The one number this topic now revolves around

• 102.4 Tb/s — aggregate switching capacity of Broadcom's Tomahawk 6 "Davisson" Ethernet switch with co-packaged optics, reported as shipping. That is the headline silicon number for the 2026 optical-module conversation.

Earnings cadence — what you can actually line up

• 2026-05-06 — Coherent Corp. released Q3 FY2026 results.
• Reporting period: quarter ended 2026-03-31.
• Filing tag: iivi-20260331. CIK: 0000820318. Fiscal year-end: 06-30.
• Astera Labs (ALAB) runs a calendar fiscal year, so its Q1 2026 print is directly comparable to optical-module makers' March-quarter prints — useful for connectivity-IP vs. transceiver read-across.
• Lumentum's recent filing carries multiple P5Y (5-year) duration tags alongside small decimal rate values — read as convertible-debt / stock-comp disclosures when modeling cap structure.

Talent signal — dated and specific

• 2026-05-13 — A "Distinguished Formal Verification" role tagged pcie / cxl / ai_infrastructure went live. Distinguished-level (not staff, not principal) tells you the connectivity-IP build-out is at senior architect depth, not headcount-filling.

NVIDIA — what is verified vs. what is endorsement-only

• Verified: NVIDIA has publicly endorsed co-packaged optics and outlined plans to use light for GPU-to-GPU communication.
• Verified: a community story specifically ties CPO chips to NVIDIA AI-datacenter deployments, and a separate story claims NVIDIA unveiled an optical network switch with co-packaged optical networking chips.
• Not yet aiinframap-verified at the numeric level: any specific port-count, W/port, pJ/bit, $/port, or ship-date number attached to NVIDIA's CPO roadmap. Treat vendor-quoted CPO specs as roadmap, not measurement.

Field-observed numbers (NOT aiinframap-verified — attribution required)

• 10 m to 2 km — the distance band where datacenter operators actually use optics; inside a rack it is almost always copper (observed by a practitioner, not independently verified).
• Sub-10 m — the intra-rack zone targeted by microLED-based link proposals (e.g., Avicena), claimed at ~10 Gb/s per lane into ~50 µm fiber cores, with detector arrays at ~1000 pixels using blue light absorbed in silicon (single-source field claim).
• $300 / port (US-to-US) and $500 / port (US-to-EU) — AWS Data Transfer Terminal per-port charges cited by one practitioner reading the FAQ (unverified by aiinframap; confirm against the live AWS pricing page before quoting).

Dataset transparency

• This snapshot was built from 59 verified facts and 21 material signals on file for the optical-modules topic. The single hardest number across all of them is still 102.4 — Broadcom's CPO switch capacity, in Tb/s. Everything else is either a date, a filing ID, or a claim that needs a second source.