Guohai Securities: CPO restructuring test system, domestic test equipment performance is comparable to global leaders

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Guohai Securities released a research report saying that in the CPO era, large number of channels and high parallel industrialization requirements, test efficiency is replacing manufacturing capacity as a core bottleneck. The test system has been completely restructured, and advanced testing, ATE platformization and standardization have become the three core main lines. Domestic devices still have room to catch up in terms of electrical bandwidth, background jitter, and support for next-generation modulation formats, but the overall domestic substitution process continues to advance. Optical module testing equipment is driven by both technical upgrading capabilities and production expansion, and the industry's prosperity is expected to continue to rise. Maintain the “Recommended” rating for the optical module equipment industry.

Guohai Securities's main views are as follows:

Continued growth in AI computing power is driving the accelerated evolution of optical interconnection to CPO, and industry bottlenecks are shifting from interconnection transmission to testing

As the demand for AI cluster bandwidth continues to rise, copper interconnections are approaching physical limits in terms of wiring density and channel loss. The evolution of optical interfaces from pluggable optical modules to NPO and CPO is the greatest possible choice for physical laws. Traditional optical testing uses independent instruments, complex optical alignment, and minute-level cycles. It can no longer support the industrialization needs of large channel numbers and high parallelism in the CPO era. Test efficiency is replacing manufacturing capacity as a core bottleneck.

The test system has been completely restructured, and advanced testing, ATE platformization and standardization have become the three core main lines

In terms of moving forward testing, the CPO integrates the light engine, Chiplet, and ASIC into high-value packages. It is necessary to advance optical testing to the wafer level and optical engine level, establish a full-process certification system from Known Good Die to Known Good X, and screen out defective devices at the low value stage. In terms of ATE platforming, future optical tests will use standard ATE test heads to achieve high-density multi-site parallel testing. The integrated photoelectric probe card embeds optical alignment and fine displacement adjustment into the Probe Card, transforming laboratory-level capabilities into OSAT mass production solutions. In terms of standardization, the industry needs to unify the wavelength, interface, modulation format, and Blind-Mate connection method, and pre-implement the Design for Test concept to reserve test access points and BIST self-test capabilities during the chip design phase.

The global optical test equipment market is highly concentrated, and Keysight, Anritsu, Tektronix and R&S occupy leading positions with a complete product layout

According to Frost & Sullivan, in 2024, Keysight led the domestic market with a share of about 30.8%, covering all aspects of wafer-level ATE to system-level network testing; Anritsu's domestic share is 22.5%, and BertWave and optoelectronic VNA meet 800g/1.6T R&D verification requirements, and Anritsu's testing business is expected to increase 23.6% year-on-year in fiscal year 2026; Tektronix and R&S are sampling based on nearly 80 years and over 90 years of technology accumulation, respectively Complete competitiveness has been built in the fields of oscilloscopes, coherent analysis, and RF-optoelectronic collaborative testing.

Domestic substitution is advancing at an accelerated pace, and the indicators of some core products of Unicom Instruments are close to or surpass the international advanced level

The DCA1065 sampling oscilloscope's optical bandwidth of 65 GHz is the same as overseas. The PBT3058 error analyzer has a maximum of 128 GBaud surpassing the mainstream overseas 120 GBaud, and the CR3302 clock recovery coverage capacity is basically the same as overseas. Domestic devices still have room to catch up in terms of electrical bandwidth, background jitter, and support for next-generation modulation formats, but the overall domestic substitution process continues to advance.

Related targets: Unicom Instruments, UFJ Technology, Cree Technology, Huashengchang, Robotec, Keger Precision, Bozhong Seiko, Autoway, Anda Intelligence, Quick Intelligence, Smart Cube, etc.

Risk warning: Risk of technological maturity falling short of expectations, risk of uncertainty in the implementation of industrialization, risk of early large investment periods and falling short of expectations in project execution, risk of market pattern adjustment, risk of changes in the policy environment.