Abstract
“The Internet continues to make new demands of the optical transceiver
industry,” says Roy Rubenstein, Director of Research at LightCounting.
“Technology has a key role to play in helping transceiver players meet new
requirements while giving their designs an edge, in performance and in
reducing costs, in what is a fiercely competitive marketplace.”
Introduction
The opto-electronic transceiver industry has experienced its fair share of
growing pains but has emerged all the stronger for it. Lessons learnt during
the telecom downturn of 2001- 2003 in particular will serve firms well as they
navigate the stormy market conditions expected in 2009 and 2010.
Now, as the transceiver industry enters adulthood, it will need to use all of
its experience to exploit emerging market opportunities that will use
increasingly complex technologies. That optical transceiver opportunities
exist despite the economic downturn is due to the continual growth in data
traffic that shows no signs of abating. All of the world' s voice, video, and
data traffic travel though opto-electronic transceivers at some point in the
network. And transceivers will only become more pervasive with time.
LightCounting' s first technology review report looks at key market trends
driving optical transceiver use. Bandwidth growth drivers are impacting the
access, metro, and long-haul networks, as well as impacting the datacenter in
the need for faster connections, which brings to the fore the ongoing battle
between copper and optical interconnects.
Optical transceivers must address these market drivers via several technical
considerations and developments, including the need for greater speed, which
will be met in a variety of ways such as the adoption of advanced modulation
schemes; the use of parallel and serial interconnect and multiple wavelengths
per fiber; and new disruptive developments, like active optical cable and
silicon photonics. Practical issues, such as manufacturing, also must be
weighed: the way a company makes its transceivers plays a critical part in its
success irrespective of the opto-electronic smarts crammed inside transceivers.
The market is also witnessing the merging of once-separate optics and
electronics design domains. The two domains now play complementary roles in
transceiver and optical system design. Additional technologies, established
and new, promise to benefit transceiver design. One is optical integration, a
not-so-new technique that will increasing be used as higher-speed transceiver
designs become more prominent. Silicon photonics is another, this time a fresh
approach. The primary market of silicon photonics remains inter- and
intra-chip communication for emerging computing requirements, but it could end
up playing a key role for the telecom and datacom transceiver markets.
Report Outline
LightCounting' s first Technology Review report addresses the high-speed
interface market for datacom and telecom. From the LAN to the WAN, the report
addresses copper and fibre interfaces ranging in speed from 4-Gbps to
100-Gbps; from short range parallel optics - POP4 and SNAP12 - to emerging
100-Gbps Ethernet standards, as well as the 4, 8 and 16-Gbps Fibre Channel
standards.
The comprehensive report addresses the following:
- The key markets and drivers fueling transceiver development
- The underlying forces and markets advancing the transceiver business
- How the issues of speed, cost, and power are being addressed by
transceiver manufacturers
- How manufacturing is turning out to be a major competitive weapon for
vendors
- How electronics and optics are boosting link performance and reducing
transceiver and system cost
- Whether photonic integration technologies are ready to radically transform
the industry
Target audience
Sales/ marketing professionals addressing the datacom and telecom markets,
executives developing business strategies, and the investment community
interested in copper and optical high-speed interface opportunities.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Transceiver Markets and Drivers
- The Growing Role of Optical Transceivers
- Transceiver Markets and Trends
Chapter 2: Drivers of Transceiver Product and Technology Development
- Bandwidth Drivers
- Explosion of Content From Mobile Devices
- High-Speed Broadband Deployment At the Network Edge
- Changing Use of E-mail
- Rich Web Site Content
- Music Downloads
- Video Downloads
- The Internet Reaches Everywhere
- Rising Internet Use in Asia
- The Impact of Rapid Traffic Growth on the Network
- Access network transformation
- Broadband Drivers
- Femtocells Set to Play Role in the Home
- Fiber-to-the-X Market Status
- WDM Will Play a Key Role in Next-Generation PON
- CATV Access
- The Optical Packet Transport Platform
- OPT: Jury Is Still Out
- Opposing Contenders to OPT
- High-speed Optical Transmission in the Core Network
- 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps Market Drivers
- 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps Roadmaps
- Optical Penetrates the Datacenter
- Datacenter trends
- Datacenter Architecture and the Impact on Transceivers
- Networking Protocol Impact on Transceiver Requirements
- Unified Datacenter Fabrics
- 10-Gbps Technology Begins to Reach the Server
- Optics Battles with Copper for Supremacy at 10-Gbps and Beyond
- The 10GbE Question
- SFP+ Optical Modules
- Active optical cables
- 10GBASE-T ICs
- SFP+ Copper Cables
- Consumer Applications
- The Move to Even Higher Speeds
Chapter 3: Transceiver Product Trends
- Overall Product Trends
- Data Rates Continue to Rise
- Form Factors Continue to Shrink
- Telecom Products
- 10-Gbps Telecom Interfaces Move to Transceivers and to XFP
- 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps Interfaces
- Client-Side 40-Gbps Interfaces
- Line-Side 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps Interfaces Incorporate Innovative
Modulation Schemes
- Duo-binary
- DPSK
- DQPSK
- Polarization Multiplexing Combined with Phased-Shift Keying
- Contrarian Approaches to 40-Gbps
- Infinera' s Approach: Integrating PICs and Bandwidth Virtualization
- Nortel Networks' s Approach: Using Dual-Mode QPSK
- OpVista' s Approach: Employing 4x10-Gbps in a 50GHz Channel
- WDM Continues to Thrive
- Datacom Optical Transceivers
- Migration to SFP+
- Fibre Channel Moves to 8-Gbps
- Parallel Transceivers Find Their Sweet Spot
- Ethernet and Fibre Channel Converge and Diverge
- Parallel Transceiver Trends
- Parallel Transceivers for 40-Gbps and 100-Gbps Short-Reach
Implementations
- Active Optical Cables
- AOC Have Cost Advantages
- AOC Deliver Compatibility with Copper Interfaces
Chapter 4: Manufacturing Issues
- Transitioning from Craftsmanship to High Volume
- Manufacturing Cost Drivers
- Packaging
- Testing
- Reliability Testing
- The Role of Standards and Specifications
- Design for Manufacture is Now Critical
- Analog IC Design Moves In-House
- Offshoring Enters a New Phase
Chapter 5: Optics and Electronics
- Interfacing Optics and Electronics
- LRM and SFP+ Blur the Electronics-Optics Boundary in Enterprise
Networks
- EDC Looks to Penetrate Telecom Applications
- Future directions of electronics for longer reach telecom
applications
Chapter 6: Optical Integration and Silicon Photonics
- Moore' s Law Doesn' t Apply to Optical Integration
- Photonic integration challenges
- Hybrid Integration Becomes a Key Photonic Tool
- Integration Limitations
- New Applications Drive Optical Integration
- Reduced Cost per Transported Bit
- System Density
- Parallel Channel Designs
- Silicon Photonics
- Photonic Building Blocks in Silicon
- Silicon Photonics Players
- Silicon Photonics' Market Evolution
- Silicon Photonics Still Has Some Challenges to Overcome
- Research Programs and Initiatives
Appendix: Transceivers and Optical Technologies Markets
- Transceiver Forecast Summary
- Derivative Forecast for Optical Transmitter and Receiver
Technologies
- Optical Transmitter Technologies
- Optical Receiver Technologies
