VCSEL portfolio

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are GaAs-based semiconductor lasers that emit perpendicular to the wafer surface, enabling dense two-dimensional arrays. Lumentum is one of the two principal merchant VCSEL suppliers worldwide — the other being Coherent Corp (post-Finisar, post-II-VI consolidation). Lumentum’s VCSEL business sits in the Industrial Tech segment for 3D-sensing and consumer/automotive applications, and in the Cloud & Networking segment for short-reach multimode datacom Lumentum FY25 10-K ✓.

3D-sensing — the Apple Face ID origin

The defining moment for the VCSEL business was the September 2017 launch of iPhone X, which introduced the TrueDepth camera and Face ID biometric authentication. The TrueDepth dot projector relies on a VCSEL array that fires a structured infrared pattern onto the user’s face; an IR camera reads the deformation pattern to construct a 3D depth map.

Supplier	Apple status	Source
Lumentum	Original primary VCSEL supplier qualified at iPhone X launch (Sept 2017)	Patently Apple 2018-11 ✓; optics.org 2017 ✓
Finisar (now Coherent)	Apple invested $390M to scale Finisar Sherman, TX VCSEL production; ramped through 2018	AppleInsider 2017-12 ✓

The “major customer” cited in Lumentum’s November 2018 guidance cut was widely understood to be Apple Patently Apple 2018-11 ◐ — Apple was not formally named in the SEC filing, but the inference was reported across industry trade press.

◐ Aggregator-level attribution caveat: Apple does not formally disclose component suppliers. Lumentum-as-Face-ID-supplier and the supplier-share split with Finisar/Coherent are reconstructed from supply-chain reporting (Patently Apple, optics.org, AppleInsider, CNBC, ApppleInsider). Treat as ◐ aggregator-level for any thesis-load-bearing claim about Apple unit allocation.

The 3D-sensing business has been cyclical with iPhone unit volumes and Apple’s spread of Face ID across the lineup. Industry trade press has repeatedly used Lumentum’s 10% revenue concentration warnings as a proxy for Apple unit cycles ◐.

VCSEL product portfolio

Lumentum publicly markets several multi-junction VCSEL array products specifically for high-power 3D-sensing and LiDAR applications.

Product	Wavelength	Power	Application	Source
400 W 905 nm Multi-Junction VCSEL Array	905 nm	400 W peak	Long-range automotive LiDAR	Lumentum product page ✓
70 W 905 nm Multi-Junction VCSEL Array	905 nm	70 W peak	Short-range LiDAR, in-cabin sensing	Lumentum product page ✓
90 W 940 nm Multi-Junction VCSEL Array	940 nm	90 W peak	3D-sensing, biometrics, gesture recognition	Lumentum product page ✓
Five-junction and six-junction VCSEL arrays	905 / 940 nm	High-efficiency variants	Consumer 3D sensing, automotive LiDAR	Lumentum 2021-03-03 release ✓

The multi-junction architecture stacks multiple p-n junctions vertically inside a single VCSEL, multiplying the power-conversion efficiency without proportionally increasing chip area or driver complexity. The five- and six-junction generations from 2021 onward unlocked the long-range automotive LiDAR opportunity by reaching the >100 W peak power needed for ~250 m detection range Optical Connections 2021-11 ✓.

Automotive LiDAR — Hesai partnership and ADAS deployment

Lumentum’s automotive VCSEL business was anchored by a 2022 partnership with Hesai Technology (Shanghai-listed; HK:2525, NASDAQ:HSAI) for the AT128 hybrid solid-state LiDAR unit. The AT128 uses Lumentum’s 905 nm vertical-emitter arrays as the illumination source for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) optics.org 2022 ✓.

The automotive LiDAR market opportunity is structurally smaller than 3D-sensing (no single customer comparable to Apple in volume), but the multi-year design-win cycle and qualification overhead create stickier OEM relationships. Hesai is the largest LiDAR-system OEM globally by 2025 unit shipments.

⚠ Inferred / estimate: Hesai-as-largest-LiDAR-OEM-by-units is informed by HSAI investor materials and trade-press market-share estimates; not Lumentum-validated. Confirm with HSAI 20-F or LiDAR market reports.

Short-reach datacom — multimode VCSELs

The other half of the VCSEL business is short-reach optical interconnect inside datacenters. Multimode-fiber transceivers operating at 850 nm typically use VCSEL transmitters because they’re cheaper than InP DFB lasers and high-volume manufacturable on GaAs.

The catch: as datacenter optical link rates have scaled to 400G and 800G, single-mode-fiber optics with InP EML transmitters have largely displaced VCSEL-multimode for hyperscaler datacenter spine links. VCSELs remain dominant in short-reach (<100 m) inside-rack and inside-row links, but the 800G+ AI-cluster spine traffic is now overwhelmingly single-mode + InP EML.

This is why Lumentum’s AI-photonics narrative centers on the InP EML node (see InP EML process) rather than the VCSEL franchise — VCSELs are not the AI-spine solution for >100 m reaches. They retain a role in shorter-reach NIC-to-leaf-switch links but with declining unit-share against single-mode optics.

VCSEL competitive landscape

Peer	Position
Coherent Corp (formerly II-VI / Finisar)	Direct competitor; Apple second-source VCSEL supplier; Finisar Sherman TX fab
TriLumina (acquired by Lumentum predecessor scope)	Earlier acquisition for VCSEL IP
Trumpf Photonic Components	German VCSEL maker; consumer + sensing focus
Vertilas / Vixar	Smaller niche players
AMS-Osram	Consumer / automotive; partner to several phone OEMs
Broadcom (legacy Avago)	Datacom multimode VCSEL competitor

Cross-thesis links

VCSEL multimode vs. SMF + InP EML — the structural reason VCSEL is not the AI-photonics primary thesis even though Lumentum is a top-tier VCSEL maker. The reach scaling unfavorable to multimode at >800G/lane drove the InP EML story.
Apple iPhone unit cycle — historical demand pattern for VCSEL revenues; relevant for understanding Industrial Tech segment volatility (segment revenue declined 14.6% in FY2025 to $234.2M FY25 10-K ✓).
Hesai (HSAI) — LiDAR partner; Hesai’s success is a beta on Lumentum’s automotive VCSEL revenue.