High-Precision Test Equipment for Silicon Photonics and CPO Market 2025–2032

The market for test and measurement equipment in silicon photonics and co-packaged optics is hitting an important growth phase. Devices keep getting more complex, and as data rates jump, precision testing across the whole lifecycle—from wafers to finished systems—matters more than ever for data centers, telecom, automotive sensing, and aerospace or defense.

Let’s take a look at the market’s projected expansion, the tech in play, and the strategic shifts shaping this highly specialized field.

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Market Growth Outlook for Silicon Photonics Test and Measurement

The global market is on track to grow from USD 1.28 billion in 2024 to USD 2.04 billion by 2032. That’s a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.91%, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Robust, repeatable, and high-speed testing is now essential as photonics moves from the lab to large-scale commercial deployment. Silicon photonics and co-packaged optics have basically become the backbone of next-gen connectivity.

As transceivers, switches, and integrated optical components ramp up in volume, test and measurement infrastructure has to keep pace. Accuracy, throughput, and automation need to scale right alongside them.

Key Drivers Behind Market Expansion

What’s pushing this growth? Several forces are at play:

Increasing device complexity – Advanced optical ICs combine lasers, modulators, detectors, and control electronics all on a single substrate. That drives up demand for multi-domain (optical and electrical) test solutions.

Rising data-rate requirements – Data center and telecom applications are jumping to higher line rates, so tolerances on signal integrity, jitter, and optical power budgets are getting tighter.

Stringent reliability expectations – Automotive, aerospace, and defense want rigorous qualification and long-term reliability testing for safety-critical systems. No shortcuts there.

Shift to volume manufacturing – As silicon photonics moves from pilot lines to high-volume production, manufacturers need in-line, automated test capabilities to keep yields up and test costs down.

Types of Test and Measurement Equipment in Focus

The test solutions ecosystem for silicon photonics and co-packaged optics covers the full electrical–optical stack. Modern systems have to catch subtle impairments while running at extremely high bandwidths and bit rates.

Here are some of the key equipment categories:

Electrical probing systems for wafer- and die-level access to high-speed I/O and control pads.

Optical characterization tools to measure insertion loss, return loss, wavelength response, polarization dependence, and modal characteristics.

Bit error rate testers (BERTs) to validate link performance under realistic traffic patterns and stress conditions.

High-bandwidth oscilloscopes for time-domain analysis of high-speed electrical and optical waveforms.

Signal integrity analyzers to assess jitter, eye diagrams, and channel impairments in advanced packaging and interconnect schemes.

Testing Across the Complete Product Lifecycle

Testing covers multiple stages of design and manufacturing. Each stage brings its own constraints and instrumentation needs.

Wafer-level testing – Early screening of photonic dies and integrated circuits to catch process variations and defects.

Die-level and package-level testing – Characterization of individual die and assembled co-packaged optics for functional and parametric performance.

Final product testing – System-level verification for switches, modules, and subsystems running under realistic workloads.

In-line production testing – Automated test benches built into manufacturing lines for high-throughput quality control.

R&D and prototype validation – Flexible, reconfigurable platforms to explore new device architectures and packaging schemes.

End-User Segments and Global Deployment

Demand for advanced test and measurement systems comes from a pretty diverse set of end users. Each segment uses silicon photonics in its own way, but they all need robust, scalable testing.

Some of the main end users are:

Chip manufacturers developing silicon photonics ICs and co-packaged optical components.

Optical IC foundries providing manufacturing services and needing sophisticated in-line and end-of-line testing.

Data center operators deploying high-density optical interconnects to support cloud and AI workloads.

Telecommunications providers upgrading networks to higher data rates and more agile optical transport layers.

Automotive, aerospace, and defense industries integrating photonic sensing and high-reliability optical communications.

Regional Distribution: Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific

The market’s global footprint is hard to miss, with big activity in these regions:

Americas – Strong presence of hyperscale data centers, leading semiconductor firms, and defense-related photonics programs.

EMEA – Robust research ecosystem, standardization efforts, and telecom infrastructure upgrades.

Asia-Pacific – Rapid growth in manufacturing capacity, packaging innovation, and large-scale network deployments.

Technology Trends Shaping Next-Generation Test Solutions

Test and measurement platforms are evolving fast to keep up with photonics innovation. Three trends stand out right now.

First, AI-driven diagnostics are making their way into test workflows. They can spot subtle signs of failure, optimize test sequences, and speed up root-cause analysis. Machine learning models sift through huge datasets of waveforms, BER results, and process metrics to help improve yield and reliability.

Modularity, Cloud, and Evolving Standards

Second, modular hardware architectures let users reconfigure test setups more easily. Swapping modules as data rates, standards, and device types change helps protect investment and makes it easier to adopt new tech.

Third, cloud-native analytics are changing how test data gets stored, processed, and shared. Centralized analysis platforms make it possible to compare data across sites, do predictive maintenance, and keep improving test strategies globally.

At the same time, new industry standards and ever-higher data rates are pushing the development of next-generation measurement tools built for novel device architectures in co-packaged optics and advanced silicon photonics.

Strategic Collaborations and Leading Industry Players

Progress in this domain really depends on collaboration now. Equipment vendors, research institutions, and industry consortia keep teaming up to define test methods and validate new architectures.

They’re also working hard to speed up deployment. You see this everywhere in the field.

Some of the companies shaping the test and measurement scene:

Anritsu

Keysight Technologies

Rohde & Schwarz

Intel

Synopsys

These organizations push innovation and use agile supply chain strategies. They move fast to meet customer needs and make sure instruments are available.

They’ve got a hand in supporting those fast-changing silicon photonics roadmaps, too. Honestly, their efforts—along with a pretty collaborative ecosystem—set the stage for reliable, scalable optical systems.

It’s hard not to wonder how much further this teamwork will take global connectivity and sensing in the coming decade.

Here is the source article for this story: Analysis of the Test & Measurement Equipment Market for Silicon Photonics & CPO, 2025-2032 – Increasing Demand for High-Precision Optical Testing in Data Center Interconnects

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