Research|Optics: ECOC 2026 Takeaways, NPO Gains Momentum as Slow and Wide Takes Shape

We attended ECOC 2026 in Málaga last week. The debate between slow and wide and fast and narrow was a recurring topic in presentations and plenary sessions. Companies presented microLED and micro-VCSEL designs and discussed their performance, manufacturing challenges and production timelines. NPO was also in focus, with live NPO demos on the show floor and more discussion of how and when it ramps.

This note covers our takeaways from the presentations, demos and conversations with companies, including developments in NPO, scale-in, external lasers, retimers, DSPs, coherent-lite and test and measurement.

1. Theme

Slow and wide means many lanes at a low rate, typically 2-50 Gbps NRZ, using microLEDs or micro-VCSEL arrays instead of a few 200G or 400G PAM4 lanes. Lumentum, Coherent, ams OSRAM, Credo, Marvell, Avicena and even Nvidia’s research team all presented hardware or concepts at ECOC.

Companies at the Sunday workshop used different definitions of slow. OpenAI used less than 50 Gbps, while Marvell used slow and wide for 2-50 Gbps micro-emitters and flat optics for 50-100 Gbps.

The other debate was the choice between microLEDs and micro-VCSEL arrays. Credo’s first Active Light Cable uses microLEDs, but when we talked to the company, it told us it is working on both. Lumentum, Coherent and ams OSRAM presented micro-VCSEL approaches. Coherent also included a microLED architecture credited to Avicena in its slides. Avicena also had a microLED demo at its booth.