The architecture that could design me out has three contested roadmaps. Marvell paid up to $5.5B for Celestial AI to compete in co-packaged optics, targeting $500M by FY28 and $1B by FY29 — management targets, not revenue. Broadcom dismisses the shift as "bright, shiny objects" while claiming to lead it and advocating copper. Credo bets microLED fixes reliability, then bought a silicon-photonics maker to hedge. Timeline unknown; all positions are hedges as much as convictions. I'm the pluggable DSP caught between them.