View Larger

Abstract

Active Optical Cables (AOCs) emerged on the communications and consumer electronics scenes only very recently, the result of collaboration among key market players like IBM, Intel and Sun Microsystems to eliminate shortcomings in existing transceiver and copper interconnect solutions, such as high power consumption, heavyweight and long latency. The cost and feature benefits of AOCs proved valuable enough to create a noteworthy market segment in 2009, despite the general economic downturn and executives' initial skepticism concering the scope of influence for AOCs.

Given the growing significance of the AOC market, and the need to address the perhaps overblown claims circulating in the media regarding the impact of this segment on the wider market, LightCounting has chosen to add the AOC market to its growing list of researched markets to forecast. Taking into consideration the profiles of key vendors, current statistics for AOC implementation and sales, and forces driving the development of AOC and similar new technologies, LightCounting paints a clear and compelling picture of this fledgling market as it now stands and forecasts the trajectory of this market through 2015. AOCs are poised to become a disruptive force among telecommunications and datacom markets and transceiver markets; technical innovations from this segment are promising, though applications in consumer electronics are not predicted before 2013.

Technologies using AOCs are creating new products in Embedded Optical Modules, and new parallel optic transceivers. AOC products developed for the HPC area are rippling down to the commercial datacenter and eventually to consumer applications.

Total report length: 132 Pages

Table of Contents

Click here to view the Table of Contents.

Figures

• Figure 1-1:IBM’s Roadrunner HPC Showing AOCs
• Figure 1-2: 4-Channel and 12-Channel MSAs
• Figure 1-3: Sun Microsystems Constellation Subsystem Supporting 12x10 Gbps CXP AOCs
• Figure 2-1: New Products Based on AOC Technologies
• Figure 2-2: AOCs Will Impact Traditional Transceiver Markets and Create New Transceiver Products
• Figure 2-3: Examples of Cabling Waterfalls
• Figure 2-5: AOC Simplified Transceiver Construction
• Figure 2-6: Luxtera's Silicon Photonic ACO Technologies
• Figure 3-1: Main MSAs Form Factors for AOCs
• Figure 3-2: AOC Product Examples
• Figure 3-3: WDM 10-16 Channel Laser Source
• Figure 3-4: High Speed Differential Signaling
• Figure 3-5: InfiniBand Technology Roadmap
• Figure 3-6: Mini-SAS MSA and SAS Roadmap
• Figure 3-7: AlpenIO PCI Express AOC, EOM, and Line Card
• Figure 3-8: Aprius-PCI Express Systems Solutions
• Figure 3-9: Copper 5G USB and 10G HDMI Consumer Retail Prices
• Figure 3-10: Consumer and Non-Datacenter AOCs Examples
• Figure 3-11: Digital Signage Applications
• Figure 3-12: Format Comparisons
• Figure 3-13: Thunderbolt and Light Peak
• Figure 4-1: TOP500.org HPC by Country
• Figure 4-2: HPC Systems Types: Exotic Architectures
• Figure 4-3: Assembly HPC Example
• Figure 4-3: PC-HPC or Super-PC Example
• Figure 4-3: PS/3 Sony HPC Example
• Figure 4-4: Processors Used in the Top500 HPC Systems
• Figure 4-5: HPC Cluster Networking Architecture
• Figure 4-8: Typical Fat Tree Datacenter Interconnect Architectures
• Figure 5-1: Chinese Tianhe - 1A HPC Custom ASIC for Dual AOCs
• Figure 5-2: Tianhe-1A HPC Custom ASIC for Dual AOCs
• Figure 6-1: AOC Shipment Forecast by Protocol 2010 & 2015
• Figure 6-2: Unit Shipments Forecast by Data Rate 2007-2015
• Figure 6-3: 4-Channel Unit Shipments Forecast by Data Rate 2007-2015
• Figure 6-4: 12-Channel Unit Shipments Forecast by Data Rate 2007-2015
• Figure 6-5: 4-Channel AOC Pricing Forecast 2007-2015
• Figure 6-6: 12-Channel AOC Pricing Forecast 2007-2015
• Figure 6-7: Three 4x10G verses Single 12x10G AOC Pricing Delta
• Figure 6-8: AOC Revenue Forecast 2007-2015
• Figure 6-9: 4-Channel AOC Revenue Forecast 2007-2015
• Figure 6-10: 12-Channel AOC Revenue Forecast 2007-2015

Tables

• Table 3-1: Various Protocol Data Rate Road Maps
• Table 6-1: AOC Unit Shipment Forecast 2009-2015
• Table 6-2: AOC Average Selling Prices Forecast 2009-2015
• Table 6-3: AOC Revenue Forecast 2009-2015