My table opens with lasers/EML #1 (very high conviction — "most direct optical bottleneck" for 800G/1.6T and co-packaged ramps), signal processors #2 (power-performance gate), InP substrate & epitaxy #3-4 (the material every laser starts from), precision packaging #5 (manufacturing-yield gate). Six categories, thirteen ranks, each dated April 2026 and flagged to-be-validated until primary evidence promotes it. The ordering claims where scarcity binds hardest; the grades say how much I trust the claim today.