Core Insights - Tower Semiconductor's stock price has more than doubled in a few months, reaching a 20-year high, driven by strong market sentiment and a long history of low valuation [1][3] - The surge in demand for AI-driven computing power is highlighting the value of silicon photonics technology, which is becoming essential for high-speed interconnects in data centers [4][6] Industry Trends - The transition from copper to optical interconnects is necessary due to the exponential growth in computing power and the limitations of traditional copper solutions [4][5][6] - Silicon photonics technology is emerging as a key solution to meet the demands of AI data centers, offering lower costs, higher integration, and better scalability compared to traditional optical modules [8][12][19] Market Dynamics - The global optical interconnect market is expected to reach nearly $20 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 18% [17] - The market for optical modules specifically for AI clusters is projected to exceed $10 billion by 2026, driven by the increasing scale of AI model training and the deployment of co-packaged optics (CPO) [17][18] Company Developments - Tower Semiconductor reported a revenue of $396 million for Q3 2025, with expectations of $440 million for Q4, reflecting strong growth potential in the silicon photonics sector [18][21] - The company is increasing its production capacity to meet the rising demand for silicon photonics and silicon germanium technologies, which are critical for high-performance optical modules [21][22] Competitive Landscape - Companies like Coherent are positioned as key players in the laser technology segment, benefiting from the growing demand for silicon photonics [22][24] - Other firms in the optical module space, such as 中际旭创, 新易盛, and 天孚通信, have seen significant stock price increases and revenue growth, indicating a robust market response to the demand for high-speed optical interconnects [25][27] Technological Advancements - The evolution of silicon photonics is marked by a three-step process: active optical cables, pluggable optical modules, and ultimately, optical integration at the package level [14][15] - Major players like Marvell and Broadcom are driving the development of silicon photonics technology, with innovations such as the 6.4T silicon photonics engine and CPO architectures [31][33]

两年前差点以50亿美元卖给英特尔的 Tower Semiconductor，在短短几个月内股价翻了一倍多， 创下 20 年新高。如下图所示，2025 年 8 月，Tower的股价还在 50 美元上下缓慢移动，而到11 月12日Tower的股价一路飙升至 106.42 美元。对于一家成熟半导体厂商而言，这样的速度几乎闻 所未闻（英伟达除外），市场情绪之高涨可见一斑。更重要的是，回顾 2005—2025 这二十年， Tower 的估值长期处于较低的水平，此次爆发就在行业中格外醒目。 图注：Tower从25年8月~11月的股价走势 图注：从1994年底~现在，Tower的股价情况 但当算力架构从单机演进到大规模 GPU 集群、从数十个 GPU 扩展到数万甚至百万节点连接后， 互连体系成为整个系统的第一瓶颈。一旦进入 GPU 并行、千卡训练、百 Tb/s Fabric 网络的时 代，一切参数都呈指数级膨胀：一个 10 万 GPU的集群可能需要 50 万条互连链路，承载这些链路 的设备包含成千上万台服务器与交换机，如果规模扩展到 100 万 GPU，互连数量可能突破 1,000 万条，仅网络部分的能耗，就可能逼近1吉瓦 ...