Global technology trends impacting optical transceivers market

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Yole Développement, France, recently organized a seminar on key global technology trends impacting the optical transceivers market. Dr. Martin Vallo, Technology & Market Analyst, Lighting, Yole Développement, presented the macro-trends, such as traffic growth and market drivers.

The global device and connection growth between 2018-2023 is largely from M2M (33-50 percent), smartphones (27 percent), non-smartphones (5-14 percent), TVs, PCs, tablets, etc. By applications, between 2017-2022, Internet video leads (55-71 percent), with IP VoD (11-20 percent), web/data, file sharing, gaming, etc.

Global traffic growth is mainly driven by high-resolution video streaming services. Data-centric apps include cloud services, industrial automation, HD video streaming, etc. There are emerging apps, such as AR/VR. Demand for the highest speeds comes from metro networks today.

Looking at the app trends, there is the status of migration to higher speed in optical transceiver datacom. At 400G, there is faster Internet, with faster interfaces. There are throughput improvements on the electrical and optical sides. There is also the price performance of hyperscalers. Penetration rate of DC optical transceiver modules by data rates will increase by 37 percent for 400G and beyond by 2026.

Looking at the optical transceiver technology trends, there is laser usage, from

  • Short-reach (0 to 100 meters): higher bandwidth VCSELs.
  • Intermediate reach (500 meters to 2 km): silicon photonics/EML.
  • Long-reach (10 km and beyond): DML(DFB)/EMLs low-power coherent optic.

There has been modulation evolution, as well. There is four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4). There is standard for medium- and long-haul serial data links that run >50 Gbps per lane. PAM4 is still expensive. For quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), the advantage is to transmit more bits per symbol. It is only for coherent technology (sufficiently high signal to noise ratio). For optical transceivers, there are the on-board optics (OBO) / co-packaged optics (CPO).

The optical modules strategy for vertically integrated market is the Epi-wafers, laser sources, modulators, drivers, and amplifiers, and integration platforms (InP or SiPh). Between 2020-2026, the optical transceiver market revenue will increase from $4.2 billion in 2020 to $13.8 billion in 2026 for datacom, at CAGR 22 percent. It will increase for telecom from $3.9 billion in 2020 to $6.1 billion in 2026, at CAGR 8 percent.

PS: On a personal note, with profound grief, today, we have lost Shankar Ghosh, or Keshtoda, to Covid-19. He was my guru from my young days. I recall my first ever article, at 14, published by him at Pragati Manjusha, Allahabad. May you rest in peace, dear Keshtoda.

This entry was posted in Big data, Data centers, Optical networking, Optical transceivers, Telecom.