stockharbinger
2.5K posts

stockharbinger
@stockharbinger
Trader with 22+ years of experience. Don’t fly too close to the sun as you may get burned. My tips are all opinion, always do your own due diligence.


Brought a lot of $lunr. I like exposure to this sector.




From the guy that brought you this banger on $LWLG, let's talk about $HIMX. Himax has been quietly embedding itself into the supply chains of the two most powerful tech companies on the planet. They won't confirm who. So let's connect the dots. None of this is confirmed. Pure speculation based on patents, LinkedIn, and supply chain breadcrumbs. Himax has been a "boring" display driver IC company for 20 years. $830M in revenue making chips that tell pixels what color to be. But CEO Jordan Wu keeps dropping hints on earnings calls about two massive unnamed customers in optics and AR. Let's figure out who. Customer #1: Co-Packaged Optics for "leading AI semiconductor companies and foundry." Himax uses nanoimprint lithography to stamp microlens arrays and prisms onto glass wafers. These are the components that bend laser light 90° inside AI server racks. Their partner FOCI builds the finished fiber array units. Himax owns 5.3% of FOCI. That was a $16M investment now worth roughly $90M. Here's where it gets interesting. TSMC filed a patent in December 2025 for a FAU inspection tool designed specifically for CPO. Inside the filing there's a diagram of a glass block with a prism on one side and microlenses on the other. It's the exact geometric structure described in Himax's own manufacturing patents. The shapes match. TSMC's COUPE architecture powers NVIDIA's CPO platform. If Himax's components are what TSMC is building inspection tools for, that's not a minor supplier relationship. That's foundational. $NVDA $TSM Morgan Stanley says Himax is FOCI's sole FAU supplier for both scale-out and scale-up CPO. No other supplier. They project 5,000 NVIDIA Rubin Ultra racks in 2027, scaling to 28,000 in 2028. The FAU market alone could hit billions by 2028. Himax did $832M total revenue in 2025. This one product line could double the company. Himax confirmed their first-gen CPO solution is in customer validation right now, targeting mass production in 2026. This isn't a 2028 story. The confirmation could come any quarter. Customer #2: "A leading North American customer" for AR smart glasses using LCoS microdisplays, WLO waveguides, and WiseEye AI sensing. A Himax Senior Product Manager on LinkedIn lists himself as the "Apple Project Lead." He posted photos from inside Apple Park's secure perimeter during technical collaborations. $AAPL This isn't Himax's first Apple rodeo. They supplied the wafer-level optics for Face ID on the iPhone X. The tiny dot-projector lenses that enable 3D facial mapping. Now Apple is building smart glasses and Himax makes three of the core components: LCoS microdisplay, WLO waveguide, and ultralow power AI sensing. At CES 2026 they showcased a 720×720 LCoS module weighing 0.79 grams with 350,000 nits brightness. The corporate structure is worth understanding too. This is a family operation. Founder Dr. Biing-Seng Wu (Chairman, ~22% ownership) and his brother Jordan Wu (CEO) built Taiwan's first TFT-LCD plant. Dr. Wu alone holds 61 patents. They've been running this company together since 2001. About 29% insider owned. Skin in the game. Also worth noting that Google took a 6.3% stake in Himax Display back in 2013 for Google Glass. Glass flopped but the relationship validated Himax as Big Tech's go-to for precision optical components. Now Meta is pushing AR glasses hard and Himax is listed as a key microdisplay and waveguide supplier alongside JBD and Kopin in the AR/VR supply chain. $META The auto business is the cash cow funding all of this. 40% global market share in automotive display ICs. Design wins with Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar, Hyundai. 5 to 7 year program cycles. Steady revenue floor while the optics business ramps. One more thing worth flagging. Hunterbrook Capital published the investigative report connecting Himax to NVIDIA and Apple. They disclosed they were long $HIMX before publishing. Stock popped 11% then gave it back. They're a fund known for short-selling hit pieces so the fact that this was a rare bullish report is notable. The patent evidence they cited is publicly verifiable. Even Himax's own spokesperson admitted they were initially wary of engaging with Hunterbrook. My read on what's happening based on publicly available breadcrumbs: TSMC/NVIDIA for CPO fiber array units via the FOCI partnership. The patent alignment is hard to ignore. Apple for AR smart glasses LCoS and waveguide supply. LinkedIn receipts plus Face ID history. Auto OEMs providing a 40% market share floor with multi-year locked contracts. Meta for AR/VR microdisplay supply chain positioning. Trading at roughly 20x earnings vs semis at 34x. $1.5B market cap. $286M cash on hand. The core display driver business is flat. The bull case is entirely about CPO optics and AR glasses ramping 2026 to 2028. If even one of these unnamed relationships gets confirmed on an earnings call, this reprices. The NDA wall is the only thing standing between $HIMX and a re-rating. Not financial advice. All speculation. DYOR.






