Soitec's chief product officer says indium phosphide outperforms his AI substrate; November 18 revenue decides
At SEMICON West 2026 Soitec's chief product officer called his AI substrate "the new gold" while conceding the rival material performs better; on November 18 the first half-year revenue shows whether the 2.5-3x photonics forecast still stands.
Richard Tang · 2 min read
Soitec's+5.06% — Soitec, up 5.06 percent today chief product officer has conceded, on the record, that the rival material outperforms the one his AI forecast rests on. That concession lands weeks before November 18, when the company publishes the first half-year revenue that its photonics guidance has to clear 1. Bank of America−0.07% — Bank of America, down 0.07 percent today doubled its target to €300 on October 9 1; Soitec itself now prices a narrower bet.
At SEMICON West 2026 René Jonker, chief product officer, called Photonics-SOI "the new gold" and immediately gave the caveat investors have not priced: indium phosphide performs better for optical waveguides, and silicon wins only because "the whole industry is basically set up for silicon" 2. That is a claim about inertia and installed manufacturing, not material merit. It is still a defensible moat, but it is a different moat from technical superiority. He also named the main direct competitor: GlobalWafers, which "has or used to have access to our IP" 2.
The November 18 print is the test
The guidance is specific. On September 2 Soitec raised its FY2027 Photonics-SOI forecast to 2.5 to 3 times the prior year 1, and guided Q2 revenue growth of about 50% currency-neutral, meaning measured without exchange-rate effects 1. The holes it must fill are real: FY2026 revenue fell 34% to €592 million, and mobile RF-SOI, Soitec's smartphone substrate business, fell 10% in the first quarter, leaving Q1 revenue at €113 million 1.
Photonics-SOI is what carries the ramp. It is the substrate on which silicon optical waveguides are built for co-packaged optics, where optical fibres connect beside the chip instead of on the board, the way AI data centers are moving their interconnects 2. The shares closed at €111.65 on October 23, down 34% from the €200.50 peak, on a €4.0 billion market cap 13.
Soitec has given back more than a third of its 2026 run
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Low, 52 weeks ago | €22.62 |
| Peak, Oct 2026 | €200.5 |
| Close, 23 Oct 2026 | €111.65 |
What to judge in the numbers
Land near the 50% guide and the €4.0 billion cap looks undemanding against a 2.5-to-3-times photonics ramp. Land short and the September forecast is the first casualty, because the growth case depends entirely on photonics while RF-SOI shrinks. The segment detail inside the November 18 release, not the doubled target, is where this will be decided.
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