5 December 2012

PIC market to grow at 26% from $150m to $1547.6m by 2022

According to the report ‘Photonic Integrated Circuit (IC) & quantum computing Market-By Application (optical fiber communication, Optical Fiber sensors, Biomedical, Others), Integration (Hybrid, Module & Monolithic), Components, Raw materials (LiNbO3, Silica on silicon, SOI, GaAs, InP), & Geography - Forecasts (2012 – 2022)’ published by MarketsandMarkets, total market revenue is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.3% from $150.4m in 2012 to $1547.6m by 2022.

Based on raw materials consisting of lithium niobate, silica-on-silicon, silicon-on-insulator, indium phosphide and gallium arsenide, photonic integrated circuits (planar light wave circuits or integrated optoelectronic devices) have revolutionized the optical network industry, says the market research firm. Deployed primarily in optical fiber communications, the ability of PIC-based products to process a large amount of data at huge speeds makes them a key contributor to boosting transmission capacity. PICs have hence changed the dynamics of the optical network industry by increasing optical performance and reliability while reducing physical system size, power consumption and heat dissipation. Currently, 500Gb/s PICs have been developed to deliver high-capacity transmission while optimizing power, cooling, space and operational simplicity.

The main players in the PIC industry are the US-based firms Infinera Corp, NeoPhotonics Corp, Oclaro, Luxtera, Kotura, and OneChip Photonics, which have played a significant role in changing the market dynamics. Leading players have developed monolithically integrated indium phosphide (InP)-based PICs. For example, Infinera has introduced 500Gb/s PICs (for use in long-haul flex coherent super-channels) with the main features being simplicity, scalability, efficiency and reliability. NeoPhotonics has developed a PIC-based optical line terminal (OLT) transceiver, designed to lower the overall cost of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network installation. The report also covers developments such as NeoPhotonics acquiring Santur Corp in October 2011 and Oclaro acquiring Opnext, as well as several other acquisitions, mergers, new product launches, and agreements.

In addition to optical fiber communications, PICs are being developed for other applications, categorized as optical sensors, quantum computing and biomedical. Optical sensors applications include defense, aerospace, energy, transportation, medicine and other emerging fields. Quantum computing is forecasted to be commercialized by 2017, before growing rapidly at a rate of 139.6% from 2017 to 2022, as the technology is expected to completely revolutionize the computing industry. In the biomedical field, InP-based application-specific PICs are being used for the diagnostic analysis of opaque skin tissue, principally using the techniques of optical coherence tomography (OCT) or Raman scatterometry.

Presently, the market leaders are developing medium and large PICs capable of incorporating 100-1000 components/functions in a single InP-based monolithic chip. However, the emergence of silicon photonics has changed market dynamics, as it has enabled large-scale production of PICs at low cost, notes the market research firm.

The report describes the various types of integration techniques used to fabricate PICs (including module, hybrid and monolithic) across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), and the rest of the world (ROW).

It also throws light on the PIC market according to various geographical regions (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and ROW). Currently, with a market share of 49%, North America is the biggest market for PICs (particularly in data-centers and wireless area network applications for optical fiber communications), followed by Europe and APAC. However, APAC is the largest player in access network applications for optical fiber communications. So, due to the prolific growth of data-centers and access networks in that region, it is expected that APAC will emerge as the PIC market leader by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 35.9% from 2012 to 2022, concludes the report.

Tags: PICs

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