Co-packaged optics (CPO) cannot reach mass production on today's segregated test benches, according to market analyst firm TrendForce. In its latest assessment, TrendForce states that integrated optical-electrical testing platforms have become the key to CPO volume manufacturing, and that the shift will reshape the test equipment supply chain itself.

The finding lands as datacenter operators push silicon photonics from pluggable modules into switch packages. CPO places the optical engine next to the switch ASIC on a single substrate. That integration removes the connector between separate electrical and optical test stages and forces metrology to follow.

Why does co-packaging break conventional test flows?

Traditional verification splits the workload. Electronic test equipment characterizes the switch silicon; optical benches handle the photonics. CPO collapses that boundary. When laser sources, modulators, and detectors sit millimeters from SerDes circuitry on one package, the test system must drive and measure both domains simultaneously.

TrendForce's central claim follows from that geometry: only platforms that integrate optical stimulus and measurement with electrical test in a single instrument chain can support the throughput that mass production demands. Bench-assembled setups of separate instruments, the analyst firm indicates, will not clear the pace of high-volume CPO packaging lines.

The takeaway: the test problem moves from component qualification to synchronized multi-domain measurement at line rate.

What changes for equipment suppliers?

The supply chain consequence is the sharper half of the TrendForce report. Test vendors that today sell discrete optical instruments and discrete electrical instruments face a market that rewards platform-level integration instead. The report frames this as a reshaping of the test equipment supply chain, not merely a product refresh.

For procurement teams at module makers and OSATs, that raises a concrete question: does the current instrument roadmap, built around separate optical and electrical portfolios, survive first contact with CPO ramp schedules?

For instrument makers, the question is whether integration arrives through in-house development or through partnerships that stitch optical measurement capability onto electrical ATE platforms.

What should buyers watch?

TrendForce identifies the direction without yet publishing the benchmark numbers that buyers will eventually need. When evaluating integrated platforms, engineers will want answers the report does not supply today:

• Simultaneous versus sequential optical-electrical measurement timing on one unit under test
• Platform throughput in units per hour at package-level test, compared against existing split-bench flows
• Calibration and maintenance model for a platform that spans two measurement domains
• Compatibility with existing probe and socket infrastructure on CPO packages

The report's verdict stands on the structural argument: co-packaging has already merged the optical and electrical signal paths, so the test floor must merge next.

The takeaway: vendors that cannot demonstrate a single-platform optical-electrical workflow should expect to defend their positions at the next procurement cycle.

The adoption question

TrendForce has framed integrated optical-electrical testing as a prerequisite for CPO mass production rather than an incremental convenience. That leaves the industry with a measurable test of its own: which instrument vendors will ship integrated platforms, and in what volume, before CPO packaging lines commit to their first high-volume qualification runs.