Silicon Photonics Market: By Product, Application, Waveguide, Component, and region

Market Synopsis:

Global Silicon Photonics market is valued at USD 1.08 Billion in 2021 and is projected to attain a value of USD 3.59 Billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 28.60% during the forecast period, 2022–2028. Silicon Photonics is an enabling technology that provides high performance in data transfer speed and distance, which leads to cost-saving for optical system architectures. The main benefits of Silicon Photonics are: 1) High bandwidth; 2) Low power; 3) Large transmission distance; 4) Cost savings. These benefits make it possible to integrate various functions in information processing like functionalities for optical transceiver modules (OTM), wavelength selective switch (WSS), transparent optical crossconnect (OXC), wavelength monitor (WM), optical Ethernet switch/router, coherent receiver module, etc. Therefore, the demand for Silicon Photonics has been increasing recently because the diverse application areas have increased significantly.

Growing focus on Reducing Power Consumption to Drive Growth of Silicon Photonics

Power consumption has increased drastically with the size of data centers. To reduce power consumption, telecommunication companies are now looking at parallelization and optical interconnections to minimize the usage of copper cables.

The use of light for transmission is not new; it was first used in 1960s during the sending of pictures using fiber optic cables. After that, there were various experiments until Silicon Photonics was developed; it uses electronic circuitry on semiconductor material instead of glass fibers carrying optical signals. With this development, electrical circuits replaced optics like what happened after semiconductors replaced vacuum tubes. This is because optical fiber required bending radius less than 10-7m due to its small wavelength (1μm), which is difficult to achieve with metal wires; but with electronic circuits on semiconductors, the wavelength of light is not an issue.

Market Segmentation:

Global Silicon Photonics market is segmented by Product (Transceivers, Switches), Application (Data Center & High-performance Computing, Telecommunication), Waveguide, Component, and Region.

Optical Networks are Expected to be Key Drivers of Demand for Silicon Photonics

Internet traffic is growing exponentially because of increasing demands from multimedia services, cloud computing, etc. Optical transmission at 40 Gb/s per wavelength can accommodate 200 x 200 Gb/s (400 Tb/s) internet traffic on one fiber. Moreover, optical interconnection can realize transparent data transmission at a super high speed. Optical interconnect technology is expected to be the essential infrastructure for large-scale data centers that process huge volume of information and provide cloud-computing services.

Asia Pacific to Dominate Silicon Photonic Market

Asia-Pacific will continue to lead the global Silicon Photonics market over the forecast period. The Asia-Pacific region is also expected to emerge as an attractive destination for R&D investments due to availability of skilled engineers and research facilities. On the other hand, North America is expected to be the second largest Silicon Photonics market during the forecast period. Furthermore, companies are investing more on standardization of products which is expected to boost the Silicon Photonics market.

The growth of the Asia Pacific market can be attributed to factors such as increasing expansion of optical communication networks and development of high-speed transceivers in the region. Furthermore, gaining need for cost effective data center interconnect applications is promoting growth. In addition, various advancements taking place in the field of optical components has led to development in WDM based laser sources enabling them with low power consumption and low-cost application specific devices that are compatible with other manufacturing platforms to boost the market growth.

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Key Players:

Some of the key players in the global Silicon Photonics market are Intel (US), Cisco Systems (US), GlobalFoundries (US), MACOM Technology (US), NeoPhotonics (US), II-VI (US), IBM (US), InPhi (US), Rockley Photonics (US), and STMicroelectronics (Switzerland).

The Silicon Photonics is Segmented as Follows: