ST makes its first PSM4 optical engine deliveries

Flavio Benetti is upbeat about the prospects of silicon photonics. “Silicon photonics as a market is at a turning point this year,” he says.

What gives Benetti confidence is the demand he is seeing for 100-gigabit transceivers in the data centre. “From my visibility today, the tipping point is 2016,” says Benetti, group vice president and general manager, digital and mixed processes ASIC division at STMicroelectronics.

Flavio Benetti

Benetti and colleagues at ST have spent the last four years working to bring to market the silicon photonics technology that the chip company licensed from Luxtera.

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Optical integration and silicon photonics: A view to 2021

LightCounting Market Research’s recent report on optical integration investigates the global market opportunity for integrated optical components including silicon photonics for the next five years. An interview with LightCounting CEO and report author, Vladimir Kozlov. 

LightCounting’s report on photonic integration has several notable findings. The first is that only one in 40 optical components sold in the datacom and telecom markets is an integrated device yet such components account for a third of total revenues.

Another finding is that silicon photonics will not have a significant market impact in the next five years to 2021, although its size will grow threefold in that time.

By 2021, one in 10 optical components will be integrated and will account for 40% of the total market, while silicon photonics will become a $1 billion industry by then. 

Integrated optics

“Contrary to the expectation that integration is helping to reduce the cost of components, it is only being used for very high-end products,” says Vladimir Kozlov, CEO of LightCounting.

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