SILICON PHOTONICS AND PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS 2019 Market & Technology Report - April 2019 Silicon photonics: beyond the tipping point! TODAY DRIVEN BY DATA CENTER INTERCONNECTS, MORE APPLICATIONS WHAT’S NEW • Photonic IC (PIC) forecasts for ARE LOOMING FOR PICS! different materials: Silicon, InP, Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) are built from players in investment, setting up their own long- Silica, LiNbO3, glass, polymer, SiN many different materials, on custom manufacturing haul and subsea networks for DCI. Until recently, • PIC forecast 2018-2024 platforms. These include silicon (Si), indium they were relying on traditional telecom players for • Updated silicon photonics forecast in units, value and wafers for phosphide (InP), silica (SiO2), lithium niobate long distance transmission. In 2018, Si photonics different applications for 2018-2024 (LiNbO3), silicon nitride (SiN), polymer or glass. has entered long-haul DCI with large hyperscale • Updated 2018 market shares for PICs aim to bring advantages of the semiconductor companies now being agnostic regarding Si or InP silicon photonics suppliers world, in particular wafer scale manufacturing, to technology. • Supply chains photonics. The motivations for PICs are numerous, Si photonics, which is a category of PIC, is leveraging • Technologies, processes and including smaller photonic dies, higher data rates, market trends for the different PIC lower power consumption, lower cost per bit of semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure to materials data and better reliability compared to legacy optics. combine different photonic functionalities on a • Application descriptions: Data PICs are progressively replacing vertical cavity same chip, although lasers still use InP. Si is today center interconnects, 5G, sensors surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) for increasing expected to have the highest growth for optical transceivers. In the future, Si photonics will REPORT KEY FEATURES bandwidth and distance in datacom networks. PICs integrate other PIC materials, as Si uses mature • Introduction to photonic are used for high data rate transceivers (100G and manufacturing platforms but will also use other ICs: Description, challenges, above) in coherent or non coherent mode. In the materials when performance is better. Options applications, functions future, PICs will be needed when close integration • Market forecast 2018-2024 of electronics and photonics will be needed. include InP for lasing, germanium (Ge) for photo • Description of the applications: data detection, LiNbO3 for modulation and glass for The largest volume demand for PICs is for data center interconnect, 5G, sensors interconnect. • Supply chains descriptions center interconnects (or DCIs) in data and telecom In recent years, strong R&D effort has been put into • Manufacturing trends and challenges networks, with new applications coming such as 5G wireless technology, automotive or medical the embedded optics approach to have photonic REPORT OBJECTIVES sensors. InP is the most used but Si photonics is dies as close as possible to the electronics on the • Get a clear understanding of the growing faster. Hyperscale networking companies board in the server. Today, development of co- applications and technologies related like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and packaged Application-Specific Integrated Circuits to Photonic Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and optics for switches anticipates future (PICs), with a special focus on silicon Microsoft (GAFAMs) are today the driving force for (Si) photonics. the deployment of Si photonics technology. They data center architectures and reduces power • Identification and analysis of the are currently setting up interconnected networks consumption. Switch ASIC companies will capture applications: with local data centers at the nodes of the mesh. a lot of value and are likely to be involved in more > Determination of the application GAFAMs are ahead of the traditional telecom mergers and acquisitions in the future. ranges > Market segmentation Photonic IC (PIC) materials overview* > Technical and economic requirements, by segment 5G WIRELESS DATA CENTRES Applications LONG HAUL ACCESS AUTOMOTIVE SENSORS MEDICAL INTERCO > Key players, at application and NETWORK system levels Coherent optical Optical Optical Optical Lidars OCT > Market size and market forecast transceivers transceivers transceivers transceivers for Gas sensors Blood analysis AWG (100G/400G) (28G) intra cars 2018-2024, in $M, wafers and Munits Examples of products Modulators Embedded optics interconnects (200G) • Analysis and description if the Switches technologies involved: Splitters > Existing and future PICs Typ. wavelength 1310 – 1550 nm 1310 – 1550 nm 1310 – 1550 nm 700nm 900 – 7000+nm 400 – 1500 nm technologies with a special focus Si on Si photonics InP > Major actors and R&D firms, globally SiN > Technology roadmap for the PIC materials Polymer different products and processes Glass > Who is developing what? Silica > Competing technologies and LiNbO3 organizations, per application *More complete analysis in the report • Main challenges, including packaging (Yole Développement, April 2019) SILICON PHOTONICS AND PHOTONIC INTEGRATED CIRCUITS 2019 THE MARKET WILL BOOM, WITH 400G GROWING FASTER THAN 100G FOR Si PHOTONICS The total market for PIC-based transceivers using Si 2018-2024 Si photonics-based transceiver forecast photonics and InP will grow from around $4B in 2018 to around $19B in 2024, from around 30M units to 4,5 around 160M units. Si photonics will have the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 44.5%. It 4 will grow from around $0.45B in 2018, equating to 3,5 1.3M units, to around $4B in 2024, equating to 23.5M - : 44.5% units. DCI from metro to long haul/subsea is the 3 2018-2024 largest market, with coherent telecom and sensors 2,5 CAGR being a minute part. 5G is coming and could involve $B 2 4,14 large volumes in the future as well. 1,5 2,82 Beyond DCI, other applications are looming. For 1 1,97 example, the following companies plan to use their 0,5 1,15 PIC platform for LiDAR applications: Intel, Rockley 0,45 0,48 0,74 Photonics, SiLC, Blackmore, and probably many 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 more. However, the prospects of market success are SiPh revenues still uncertain for LiDARs as they could be displaced by a combination of other approaches like radar and (Yole Développement, April 2019) imagers and the success of autonomous vehicles is still uncertain because of technical challenges, regulations and strategic changes from car makers. Si photonics player market share history in units The market volume for robotic cars is in the range of 100% thousands of units, not millions. So volumes are less 90% than for data centers. 80% The Si photonic market only involves a few players: 70% Luxtera/Cisco, Intel, Acacia and InPhi. Founded in 60% 2001, Luxtera, now part of Cisco, is the historical 50% pioneer, with almost 2M Quad Small Form-Factor 40% Pluggable (QSFP) transceivers shipped since starting volume production in 2009. Intel introduced a silicon 30% photonics QSFP transceiver that supports 100G 20% communications in 2016. The company now ships 10% a million units of the product per year into data 0% centers. Intel’s 400G products are expected to enter 2016 2017 2018 volume production in the second half of 2019. Acacia Cisco Luxtera Intel Acacia Others announced the shipment of more than 100,000 400ZR modules in total for coherent optics by 2022. (Yole Développement, April 2019) BEYOND THE TIPPING POINT, BUT NOT YET FULLY MATURE! Despite the current excitement about this Facebook working on this topic, and ‘Top of the technology, we believe that Si photonics is not yet Rack’ switches could disappear. This means that fully mature. We have reached the tipping point switches could be co-packaged with the optics at the thanks to a convergence of early adopters mastering server level. In this case, volumes will be boosted as this technology and requests from GAFAMs, but the number of switches is very high, in the range of there are still very few suppliers, as mentioned millions of units, providing a potential opportunity above. for foundries. For smaller MEMS foundries like Silex, However, a lot of new startups are being created and apm and VTT, having Si photonics processes is a way more foundries are involved from the IC and MEMS to fill their fab, as some processes are very similar, industries. One reason for large IC foundries such like Cisco/Luxtera’s MEMS capping. Last but not as TSMC to develop Si photonics approach could be least, there is always a big R&D effort worldwide linked to a future co-packaged switch approach. The with many industrial contracts in North America, data center architecture is evolving from pluggable Europe and Japan. So this market is on its way to to more co-packaged optics, with Microsoft and industrial maturity and very large volumes. MARKET & TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2019 Silicon photonics supply chain* SOI substrate Epi wafer Fabless Foundry Transceiver Euipment Operator AUTHORS With almost 20 years of experience in MEMS, Sensors and Photonics applications, markets, and technology analyses, Eric (out of business) Mounier, PhD provides deep industry insight into current and future trends. As a And more… And more… Fellow Analyst, Technology & Market, MEMS *on ehaustive list of companies & Photonics, in the Photonics, Sensing & (Yole Développement, April 2019) Display division, he is a daily contributor to the development of MEMS and Photonics activities