Global optical devices are gradually entering a mature stage, 5G may accelerate polarization

2022-06-03 21:36:30 By : Ms. Joy Chen

In the entire optical communication industry chain, optoelectronic chips, optical devices and optical modules together form the upstream core components. Optoelectronic chips are the basic components of optical devices, including laser chips, detector chips, modulator chips, and modulator chips.According to the difference of semiconductor substrate materials, there are mainly five types of typical products: InP, GaAs, Si/SiO2, SiP and LiNbO3.An optical module is an integrated module composed of a variety of optical device packages, including optical transceiver modules, optical amplifier modules, dynamically adjustable modules, and performance monitoring modules.From the perspective of product technology, domestic manufacturers have certain competitiveness in the low-end markets such as passive optical devices and low-speed optical transceiver devices, and there is still a big gap with foreign competitors in high-end optical devices, especially optoelectronic chips.According to the calculation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the localization rate of optical transceiver modules and optoelectronic chips below 10Gb/s rate in 2017 reached 90%, 80% and 30%, and the localization rate of optical transceiver modules and optoelectronic chips with rate of 10Gb/s rate was close to 60%. , 50% and 5%, and the rate of 25Gb/s and above basically depends on imports.According to the "White Paper on 5G Bearing Optical Modules" released by the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group, 5G fronthaul and middle backhaul mainly use 25G-400G rate optical modules, among which 25G DFB, 25G TIA, 50G EML and other core optoelectronic chips are domestically large. Some of them are in the development and laboratory stage, and only a small number of products such as 25G PIN and 100G coherent optical transceiver chips have been shipped in small batches and in batches. The core suppliers are mainly Accelerator Technology and Huawei HiSilicon.Since 2018, the merger and integration of the optical device industry chain has accelerated.The second largest company in the industry, Lumentum, acquired Oclaro, the third largest in the industry, for $1.8 billion; II-VI, a leading passive optical device company, acquired CoAdna, a leading WSS (wavelength selective switch) company, and Finisar, a global leader in optical devices, for $85 million and $3.2 billion. Acquired Luxtera, a leading silicon photonic chip company, for US$660 million; Cambridge Technology acquired some assets of Macom Japan and Oclaro Japan for US$54.5 million and US$41.6 million respectively; Borch Technology acquired 100% equity of Chengdu Dipu and US$5.5 million for 118 million yuan and US$5.5 million. Some assets of the PLC business of Kaiam Company in the United States; Guangku Technology acquired 100% equity of Jiahua Weijie for 145 million yuan, etc.Industry giants are frequently integrated, and the market concentration is further enhanced.For the telecommunications market, the market space in the next few years will mainly come from the advance deployment of 5G bearer networks, the construction of base stations, and the optical network upgrade of access networks.According to the "5G Bearer Optical Module White Paper", the 5G bearer network is mainly divided into the metro access layer, the metro aggregation layer, and the metro core layer/trunk to realize the functions of fronthaul and middle backhaul.5G fronthaul optical modules mainly include two types of rates, 25Gb/s and 100Gb/s, and mid-return optical modules include 25Gb/s, 50Gb/s, 100Gb/s, 200Gb/s, 400Gb/s and other rates.According to the economic operation of the communications industry in the first half of 2019 released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of June 2019, the total number of 4G base stations reached 4.45 million. Assuming that the number of 5G macro base stations is 1.5 times that of 4G base stations, it will reach about 6.67 million.According to the calculation that one base station covers three sectors, each base station needs 6 optical modules, and the base station side of the fronthaul part needs a total of 6.67 million * 6 = 40.02 million optical modules. In the initial stage of 5G network construction, all statistics are based on 25Gb/s rate optical modules. The market space for front-haul optical modules will reach 40.02 million * 600 yuan = 24 billion yuan.The 5G midhaul and backhaul parts are assumed to use ring networking, bandwidth convergence ratio, access layer: aggregation layer: regional core layer: core layer = 8:4:2:1, and the mid-haul uses 50 and 100Gb/s light The ratio of the number of modules is 3:1, the ratio of the number of 100 and 200Gb/s optical modules used in the backhaul is 2:1, and the ratio of the number of 200 and 400Gb/s optical modules used in the core layer is 2:1.According to a preliminary estimate of the 5-year construction period, the total demand for various optical modules in the domestic 5G network exceeds 50 million, and the potential market space reaches 80 billion yuan.The optical transmission system used in the access network is mainly composed of an optical line terminal (OLT), an optical distribution network (ODN), an optical network unit (ONU) and an adaptation function module (AF). For Passive Optical Network (PON) and Active Optical Network (AON).PON network has become the mainstream choice of fixed network access network due to its advantages of easy maintenance, low cost and high reliability.According to the 2019 PON equipment centralized procurement project announced by China Telecom, the scale of the new round of PON equipment centralized procurement ports has reached a new high, and the scale of GPON and 10G-EPON centralized procurement has increased significantly, which is expected to increase the demand for related optical modules.For the optical communication modules currently used in data centers, the plans of foreign Internet companies have basically completed the replacement of 10/40G to 100G, and began to plan to deploy 200G and 400G optical modules.Domestic Internet companies will also start to follow up in the past two years to complete the replacement of 100G optical modules. It is expected that the demand for 200/400G high-speed data communication optical modules will explode in the next few years.According to IHS forecast, it is expected that by 2022, the optical module market size of the data communication market will grow to 6.4 billion US dollars, with an average annual compound growth rate of nearly 20%.The concept of photonic integration was first proposed by Bell Labs in 1969. It is committed to integrating optical devices with multiple functions to form SoC chips. Due to technical limitations, mass-produced PIC products did not appear until around 2000. Since 2010, with the United States. The "Integrated Photonics Manufacturing Research Institute" was established, the Japanese cabinet supported the development of the "Optoelectronics Fusion System Basic Technology Development" plan and the continuous layout of IT giants such as Intel and IBM, and the photonics integration technology entered a period of rapid development.In general, foreign leading photoelectric chip and device companies such as Macom, Finisar, Lumentum, and Avago, and IT giants such as Intel and IBM are in a leading position in technology, and domestic related technology research is still in its infancy.According to the material, the current PIC companies are mainly divided into two camps: InP and Si. InP-based photonic integrated devices tend to mature, mainly including transmitters and receivers, which are used in local area networks and long-distance coherent optical communication. Infinera is one of the leading representative companies.In 2019, Infinera launched the sixth-generation photonic integrated chip (ICE6), which supports 2*800G coherent wavelength transmission.Intel, IBM, Luxtera and other companies focus on the research of silicon-based photonic integrated chips. Luxtera shipped the industry's first 2x100G PSM4 silicon photonics embedded optical module in March 2017. Intel also launched silicon photonics 100G PSM4 and silicon photonics in the same year. Optical 100G CWDM4 has been successfully applied to the data centers of Internet companies such as Facebook and Google.The domestic Accelerator Technology cooperated with Mellanox in the United States to launch a 100Gb/s PSM4 silicon photonics module using Mellanox silicon photonic engine, and exhibited at the CIOE 2017 Optoelectronics Expo.Throughout the company's development history, its development and growth is basically accompanied by a series of mergers and acquisitions.From 2002 to 2008, through the acquisition and integration of Genoa, Honeywell, Infineon and other companies, Finisar has core technologies and advantageous products in the fields of VCSEL, DFP laser, DWDM, 10-40G optical modules and passive optical devices.In 2008, the company surpassed Avago to become the world's largest supplier of optical components after completing the acquisition of Optium.Since 2008, the company has continued to expand its product line and related technologies through mergers and acquisitions, and its market share has steadily increased.According to Ovum statistics, in 2016, the company's market share in optical devices reached 14.8%, which was 6.2% higher than the second place Lumentum, and was in an absolute leading position.In 2018, the company was acquired by II-VI, a global leader in passive optical devices, at a valuation of US$3.2 billion, and its market position was upgraded again.There is a strong correlation between the company's stock price trend and performance development.From 2009 to 2011, Finisar stabilized its leading position in the industry, its revenue rose rapidly, and its stock price also entered a rising channel, with the lowest rising from $1.69 to $46.09.From 2012 to 2013, due to the decline in demand in the telecommunications market, the company's revenue was also greatly affected, and the stock price fell all the way.From 2013 to 2017, the increasing popularity of the data communication market and the rising demand for WSS and ROADM products made up for the negative impact of falling prices of other products in the telecommunications market.Since 2018, as prices and demand for the company's low-speed optical modules and transceivers have fallen, revenue has fallen again, and stock prices have also been hit.The company's main products include 1.25G, 10G, 40G, 100G, 400G and other optical modules, DFB, SFP fiber transceivers, etc. Currently, there are factories in Texas, China, Ningbo, and Taiwan.The US factory mainly produces laser chips (based on MBE, MOCVD process), high-speed optical modules, etc. The Ningbo factory is used to produce optical components, transmitters for the CATV market, and outdoor equipment, and the Taiwan factory mainly produces optical components and data centers. Light modules for other scenes.Macom is a technology company that provides high-performance analog semiconductor products related to radio frequency, microwave, millimeter wave and light wave.In 2009, the company's current CEO, John Ocampo, spent $22.1 million to acquire Macom from Cobham plc and listed it on the Nasdaq main board in 2012.Macom's optical communication business includes 5 sub-application scenarios of FTTx/PON, optical fiber fronthaul, data center, network security, backbone network and metropolitan area network transmission.The business started in 2011. Through the acquisition of a series of optical communication related companies such as Optomai, Mindspeed, BinOptics, FiBest, the company has completed lasers, detectors, drivers, TIA, CDR, PMD, TOSA/ROSA, silicon The full layout of optical module core components such as optical PIC.The company's products are currently mainly for the telecommunications and datacom markets, which are defined as transmission, data and access markets according to its annual report.The company's transmission products mainly include transceiver modules, fiber amplifiers and related passive optical devices, providing 10G, 40G, 400G optical module products.Access products include GPON, 10G PON and TWDM-PON optical transceiver modules for FTTH, and 6G, 10G, 25G, 50G, 100G medium and short distance optical transceiver modules for 4G and 5G networks.From the perspective of technical layout, through self-research, cooperation and mergers and acquisitions, the company has completed the entire industrial chain layout of "chip-device-module-subsystem".At present, many of the company's 25G optoelectronic chips have entered the customer verification stage, and 25G EML is already on the eve of mass production.In the research of photonic integration technology, the company's 100G coherent optical transceiver chip has also completed a technological breakthrough and entered the pre-production process transformation stage. It is expected to continue to promote the research and development of 400G chips.In terms of technical layout, in 2018, the company obtained the 5G product certification and code from the main domestic communication equipment manufacturer, and entered the 5G wireless market. The product line covers fronthaul, midhaul and backhaul networks.For the data communication market, the company's 400G OSFP and QSFP-DD optical modules have been supplied to customers in small quantities since the second half of 2018, and it is also actively conducting research and development of 400G silicon optical chips and coherent technology.