German silicon photonics (SiPh) test equipment maker ficonTEC has broken through a major bottleneck in co-packaged optics (CPO) “electrical-in, optical-out” testing and launched what it calls the industry’s first Insertion 2 automated optical test solution. As demand for photonics-integrated testing rises, the company expects equipment requirements to become more diverse and shipments to top 1,000 systems in the next 18-24 months.