Autumn 2013 Optical Connections Magazine

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PAULINE RIGBY

Consumer electronics: the next frontier for optical communications?

inside the cable, the alignment issues become much easier to manage. There are other advantages too. Opticsisimmunetoelectromagnetic interference and the cable is much lighter than its copper equivalent. And since it is effectively invisible to the outside world, engineers are free to put whatever optical technology they like inside the cable, whether proprietary or standards-based. They canuse serial or parallel optics, any combination of wavelength and modulation scheme, andany optical fibre type they like including plastic. “What happens in the cable, stays in the cable”, as LightCounting analyst Dale Murray puts it. The upshot is that it’s quicker for manufacturers to get new products to market. The crossover point from copper tooptical cabling is typically reached when the desired speed exceeds copper’s ability to deliver that speed over the desired distance. Starting out in high-performance computers (HPC), the use of AOCs soon spread to traditional data centres and multiple protocols. Thanks to the rapid adoption of 4 x 14G FDR QSFP+ modules, the InfiniBand market currently holds the largest share of the AOC market today, according to LightCounting. Ethernet-based AOCs are now seeing adoption, and other interconnect protocols such as PCI Express are potential candidates for AOCs when their data rates exceed 10Gbps. When interfaces on consumer gadgets hit speeds of 10Gbps, vendors started to look at using optical cables. In 2009, Intel officials tickled the high-tech consumer’s fancy by talking about a new high- capacity cable code named Light Peak. As a universal connector to replace all other connectors, Light Peak would be ideal for a small device like a tablet or phone that had limited real estate for ports, and Apple was said to be pushing the development. Volume production was expected to bring the cost down, with Intel predicting that Light Peak cables “will be no more expensive than HDMI”.

A couple of years later, Light Peak had morphed into Thunderbolt, which combines PCI Express and DisplayPort into one serial signal alongside a DC connection for electric power. The early cable implementations were based on copper wires rather than optical fibres (although optical versions were still being promised). So what happened? Few consumer applications demand both high bandwidth and long distances simultaneously, explained Murray. Perhaps the graphic designer working in his home office needs a high-specification cable to connect his PC to a storage device in the closet, but the consumer who simply wants to connect a video camera to the high-definition TV in his living room can still manage with copper. The ability to transmit power over the cable also tipped the scales in copper’s favour. The optical version of Thunderbolt did appear on the market in January 2013, with Corning Cable Systems and Sumitomo both releasing products ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Corning also demonstrated an optical version of the USB 3.0 interface. With these product introductions the consumer market for AOCs has become a reality, although at present it is still very small. And optical performance comes at a price, with optical Thunderbolt cables selling for as much as fifty times more than the copper versions. The consumer market can be unpredictable, and what LightCounting calls the “optical Thunderbolt factor” remains to be determined. The consumer market is so enormous, that a particular cable format would only need to capture a tiny percentage of it to generate significant revenues. If a compelling combination of price, performance and application were to come together, things could easily change. That’s given vendors a huge impetus to develop new products. “The market is certainly one to watch, and we will,” said LightCounting’s Murray.

By Pauline Rigby O ptical technology has transformed many consumer applications. The availability of inexpensive diode lasers for CD players has revolutionized home entertainment, made high-quality laser printing affordable for small businesses and home users, and enabled numerous other products that generate billions of dollars in global revenues annually. Consumer applications undeniably represent a massive opportunity for any vendor. Now it looks like optical communications – in the shape of the active optical cable – may find a place in the consumer’s home too. The market for active optical cables (AOCs) has been measured at $100 million (£65.5 million) and is expected to grow 30% in 2013 to reach $150 million, according to market research firm LightCounting. This type of cable is mainly used in high-performance computing and data centre environments today. If AOCs were to take off in consumer applications, it would blow the market forecasts out of the water. But nobody is sure when – or even if – that will happen. Put simply, an active optical cable is an optical cable with an electronic interface at both ends. Launched commercially in 2007, they were originally developed as a way to make optical transceivers less expensive to manufacture. Connecting optical fibres requires alignment across six degrees of freedom. By embedding the optics

It’s a cable Jim, but not as we know it. Credit: Sumitomo Electric Industries.

Right now, however, the interface market is very fragmented, he says. There are already a number of digital interface formats that compete with each other, including Thunderbolt, HDMI and USB 3.0, and new proposals come forward on a regular basis. The HDBaseT Alliance wants to redefine digital connectivity in your living room; OCuLink is a new cable format for PCI Express connected storage devices. The consumer also has multiple choices about how best to meettheirconnectivityrequirements. There are old technology choices, such as media converters and extenders, as well as the new technology choices, both wired and wireless (and wireless technologies keep getting faster too). Whether or not active optical cables manage to capture the hearts and minds (and the wallets) of consumers, Murray feels that the optical communications industry can only benefit from the development push. “From the standpointofvolumemanufacturing, any active optical cable that is going to succeed in the consumer or prosumer market is going to have to be in the latest design. Just the need and the people attempting to meet that need will generate better optoelectronic transceiver packaging,” he concluded. Pauline is a freelance technology writer and contributing editor to www.opticalconnectionsnews.com

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