Cumulative revenue in the active optical cabling (AOC) market will reach $3.6 billion between 2011 and 2015, whereas near-term (2011 through 2012) AOC revenue and volume will be fueled mainly by InfiniBand in commercial applications, such as supercomputers and server applications optimized for critical financial industry usage, according to the 2011 Active Optical Cables Market Report by Information Gatekeepers Inc. (IGI).
InfiniBand-based revenue and volume are expected to reach roughly 1.6 million cables, valued at approximately $135 million for this period (2011-2012), while reaching 6.4 million units and roughly $490 million in revenue over the five-year interval covered by this report.
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IGI found that the near-term market for the other PC and consumer AOC bus categories is approximately $300 million across a total of nearly 5 million cables for 2011-2012, reaching nearly $2 billion over approximately 64 million cables for the five-year period.
The report includes fairly modest forecasts for Light Peak, covering the native optical version plus AOC cable options for the expected electrical-only version, which is due to be released soon, according to Intel executives.
The 2011 Active Optical Cables Market Report includes the following sections:
-- Executive Summary — highlights the major changes and additions to the overall AOC market segment in general, given a 12-month backdrop and a 5-year forward horizon;
-- 5-year Revenue Trends and Analysis — identifies the key 5-year forward revenues, with cross-tab details for the different bus types, platforms, and applications, as well as cable speeds and lane speeds described in detail in the remaining chapters;
-- 5-year AOC Cable Volume Trends and Analysis — similar cross-tab details for unit volumes for the different bus types, platforms, and applications, as well as cable speeds and lane speeds;
-- Key Technology Watch — areas that either received significant growth over the past 12 months, or are expected to have a major impact to the overall AOC landscape over the next five years;
-- Bus Trends and Analysis — Summary view on major AOC bus trends in aggregate, plus separate cross-tab views for each of the six covered bus interface types: InfiniBand, USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, Light Peak, and PCI Express
-- AOC Materials Trends and analysis — cross-tab details on unit volumes for the following key elements used with AOCs:
* VCSEL/Light Sources (and by proxy, PIN Diodes, trans-impedance amplifiers, Limiting Amplifiers, and other materials used in conjunction with light sources and detectors). Includes cross-tab breakouts by cable speed, lane speed, platform type, and application type
* Optical fiber — similar volume analysis as above, but focused on optical fiber
* AOC Cable Jackets — similar volume analysis as above, but focused on cable jacket total lengths
* Connectors — similar volume analysis as above, but focused on the specific connectors targeted for AOC usage;
-- Platform — revenue and unit volume analysis for the following major AOC platform categories:
* High-Performance Computing (HPC); Personal Computers (PC); Consumer Electronics (CE) devices
-- Applications — revenue and unit volume analysis for the following major AOC application categories:
* Computer Fabric (i.e., for high-end compute platforms)
* Remote storage attach
* Detached Displays
* General PC IO application
* Video camera and digital camera (attached by cable, not by memory cards)
* General docking connections, such as for notebooks, netbooks, tablets, high-end cell phones.
Each of the above sections includes a basic overview, as well as associated charts and data tables that illustrate the basic trends as described in the analysis paragraphs.
The “2011 Active Optical Cables Market Report” is expected to be of interest to:
-- Systems suppliers
-- Component suppliers
-- Cable suppliers
-- Cable distributors
-- Connector manufacturers
-- Wire and cable manufacturers
-- Integrated optics suppliers
-- VCSEL suppliers
-- Optical detector/PIN diodes makers
-- Advanced silicon photonics technology suppliers
-- Investors
