Under the wave of artificial intelligence set off by ChatGPT, exponentially growing complex application scenarios have emerged.
AI big models are driving the upgrading of data center structures, and the demand for data storage and transmission is increasing at an accelerated rate compared to the past, and the requirements for data transmission rates in data centers are constantly increasing.
According to Synergy statistics, there are currently 314 new hyperscale data centers under construction worldwide, and the number of large-scale data centers operated by hyperscale operators will exceed 1,000 in the next three years and will continue to grow. #Optical module##光通信 #
Number of large data centers worldwide:
AI computing equipment manufacturers represented by NVIDIA are accelerating the production of high-performance GPUs represented by H100 and A100, which also confirms the strong demand for downstream AI data centers from the side, and is also a strong support for the market space of high-speed optical modules represented by 800G.
The throughput of data center switching chips continues to increase, driving the continuous iteration of optical module rates.
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Source: IMT-2020
FROST & SULLIVAN PREDICTS THAT THE GLOBAL OPTICAL MODULE MARKET WILL GROW FROM $10.54 BILLION IN 2020 TO $13.82 BILLION IN 2024, OF WHICH THE DATA COMMUNICATION MARKET WILL ACCOUNT FOR 51.4% IN 2020 TO 60.7% IN 2024, BECOMING THE MAIN DRIVING FORCE FOR THE GROWTH OF THE OPTICAL MODULE MARKET.
Benefiting from the accelerated construction of data centers and the in-depth layout of 5G networks under the wave of AI, China's optical module market is also expected to grow further.
Optical module industry chain
Line check | Industry research database data shows that optical modules are in the middle of the optical communication industry chain, and the upstream of the industrial chain is electronic components, PCBs, optical chips, structural parts and other component suppliers; The downstream of the industry chain are customers such as telecom operators and cloud computing data center operators.
Optical module industry chain:
The upstream raw materials of optical modules are supplied sufficiently, there are many suppliers, and the industry is mature.
Among them, optical chips are the core devices of the upstream industry chain, accounting for about 26% of the total cost of optical modules.
The downstream is mainly communication equipment manufacturers and large Internet enterprises, with a small number of enterprises and a large volume.
High-speed optical module industry overview
Depending on the specific scenario, the optical module rate and technology currently used in the data center are different.
Data center interconnection scenarios under the leaf spine architecture can be divided into inter-data center, spine-core, leaf-spine, TOR-leaf, server-TOR, and inter-server scenarios.
The core of the upgrade of traditional data centers to new data centers is to upgrade the three-layer network architecture of traditional data centers to a leaf spine two-layer network architecture, and the number of high-speed optical modules required by the leaf ridge architecture is 30 times that of the traditional three-layer architecture, which will greatly increase the demand for optical modules.
Calculation of the number of high-speed optical modules in the leaf spine two-layer architecture data center:
Source: Toupanard Research Institute
Driven by the explosion of traffic brought by AI, the next generation of TOR-leaf connections and the connection layer above them is converted to 800G rate, and optical module manufacturers are ushering in the new generation of technology to bring incremental demand.
800G optical module: High-rate optical module is ready to go
Under the growth of traffic broadband, the shipment of 100G and 400G optical modules has become the main shipment increment.
According to Yole data, all optical modules will be shipped about 85 million in 2022, of which 10G and 100G optical modules will be the largest.
As a key component of internal communication in AI data centers, high-speed optical modules are gradually replacing low-speed optical modules, and it is expected that 100G optical module shipments will continue to grow in the future, while 10G optical module shipments have begun to decline.
At present, the optical module as a whole is at the beginning of the cycle of continuous rapid ramp-up of 400G optical modules and continuous introduction of 800G optical modules.
Under the interconnection of data centers, optical modules continue to iterate to higher speeds, and the next generation of high-speed 800G optical modules is ready to go.
The agency expects that by 2026, the global shipment of optical modules will reach about 150 million.
High-speed optical module market pattern
The competition pattern of the high-end market of optical modules is relatively concentrated.
According to Lightcounting's statistics, the domestic manufacturers shortlisted in the global Top10 in 2022 are Zhongji Xuchuang (second), Guangxun Technology (eighth), Xinyisheng (seventh) and Huagong Zhengyuan (tenth), and the top four domestic optical module manufacturers occupy 26% of the global market share.
At present, domestic manufacturers are accelerating the layout of 400G/800G optical modules, Guangxun Technology, Zhongji Xuchuang, Xinyisheng, and Cambridge Technology have mass-produced 800G optical module products, and other manufacturers are also accelerating the progress of research and development.
Some of the heads represent the introduction of manufacturers:
Zhongji Xuchuang: the domestic high-end digital communication market leader, the company's 800G and coherent series products have begun mass production, 800G silicon optical module and 1.6T optical module have entered the testing stage, CPO technology and 3D packaging technology are also in the process of continuous research and development.
At the OFC conference in March 2023, Zhongji Xuchuang showcased 1.6T OSFP-XD DR8+ pluggable optical communication modules, second-generation 800G modules based on 5nm DSP and advanced silicon photonics technology, 800G OSFP DR8+ and 2xFR4 optical communication modules with power consumption less than 14W.
Optical Speed: By improving the speed of iterative development, improving customer technical support capabilities, and strengthening cooperation with core raw materials such as key electrical chips, we will seize the time window for market applications of 800G and above. At present, 800G QSFP DD /OSFP has been pushed.
Xinyisheng: A leader in the field of optical modules, with excellent cost control and the ability to cut into incremental cloud computing/AI customers. A number of progress have been made in the research and development projects of new products such as high-speed optical modules, silicon optical modules, and coherent optical modules, and the traditional EML solution, silicon optical solution, LPO scheme and low-power thin-film lithium niobate solution 800G optical module have been deeply deployed.
Cambridge Technology: 800G optical modules have launched 800G DR8/FR8 based on silicon photonics technology and 800G DR8/FR8, 2×FR4 optical modules based on EML. In the future, the process and yield of 800G 8×FR1 products and 800G 2×FR4 will be further optimized and gradually mass-produced in the Shanghai factory, improve the automated production capacity, support the future needs of data center customers to achieve large-scale delivery of products, and complete the production capacity of 800G optical modules.
Tianfu Communication: 800G optical module devices are progressing smoothly, and the volume of optical engines drives the growth of active business.
Optical library technology: It has a competitive advantage in 800G and 1.6T optical modules. At present, only three companies in the world, Fujitsu, Sumitomo and Optoko, can supply lithium niobate modulators in bulk with bulk materials. Lithium niobate electro-optical modulator is mainly used in long-distance backbone coherent communication above 100Gbps and single-wave 100/200Gbps ultra-high-speed data center, compared with silicon photonics, indium phosphide, thin-film lithium niobate modulator has a bandwidth advantage that other materials cannot match. #5月财经新势力 #
With the rise of domestic optical module manufacturers, the localization process of the supply chain is accelerating, which is expected to bring more market space.
CPO: Future mainstream solution of optical communication
In the short term, pluggable optical modules with mature technology and low cost will remain the mainstream solution.
CPO technology is mature and low-cost, and can be shipped quickly to meet the surge demand for computing power infrastructure required by top cloud vendor customers to quickly build large models.
With the maturity of CPO technology route and cost reduction brought about by technological progress, it is expected that CPO will become the mainstream technical route after 2030 with its performance advantages.
The head optical module manufacturers have also successively launched on-board optical/co-packaged optical solutions in recent years, which are currently in the stage of increasing penetration rate and shipment climbing, and pluggable will coexist with the CPO route in the next few years.
Optical module technology and rate evolution trend: pluggable will still occupy the mainstream in the short term, and OBO/CPO will dominate in the long run:
Under the catalyst of the new round of AI wave and large models, investment in AI infrastructure construction will also usher in a peak. The proportion of interconnected data traffic in the data center is large, and the optical module is evolving to the direction of high speed, low power consumption, low cost and intelligence, and the high-speed optical module is expected to usher in high-speed development opportunities by riding the east wind.
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