Optoelectronics industry heads to higher data rate products

Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition, National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC), BOSTON, USA: To coincide with the Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC), one of the largest optoelectronics trade shows, component manufacturers released and demonstrated a host of new products in March.

According to Strategy Analytics, this activity underscores the dramatic shift to higher data consumption. The recently published Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service (GaAs) viewpoint, “Compound Semiconductor Industry Review March 2011: Optoelectronics, Materials and Equipment,” captures March 2011 product, technology, contract and financial announcements for optoelectronic companies such as AIXTRON, Kopin, Cree, Philips Lumileds, Fujitsu, Spire Corporation and XSunX.

“Consumer and business adoption of data-intensive applications is driving changes in the entire electronics industry,” noted Eric Higham, director of Strategy Analytics' GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technologies Service. “The optical transport layer is the backbone of this increased demand. The industry is responding with higher data rate capacity.”

Asif Anwar, a director in the Strategy Analytics Strategic Technologies Practice, added, “We are seeing the majority of new optical networking products and components with data capability of at least 40Gbps per second, many at 100Gbps, providing faster processing.”