Active. Beyond! Optical Cables. and. Express, and. Sr. Vice. Page 1

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1 Active Optical Cables 2011 to InfiniBand and Beyond! Telecom and datacom markets: InfiniBand, Ethernet, Fibre Channel, SAS, PCI Express, and Consumer Markets. What you need to know about AOCs the Hype and the reality. By Brad Smith Sr. Vice President, Industry Analyst LightCounting LLC. Page 1

2 Table of Contents Abstract... 8 Author Biography... 9 Report Objective Executive Summary Chapter 1: Key Issues and Changes in AOCs Gain Strong Foothold in the HPC InfiniBand Segment with Other Segments to Follow Soon Introduction AOC General Business Overview Action Key Industry, Market, Company and Product Changes AOC Acquisitions Change the AOC and Transceiver Competitive Landscape Products Prices New Products On the Horizon New Technologies to Watch! & 2012 Outlook and Predictions Summary LightCounting s Position Summary Key Trends, Issues & Recommendations to Executivess AOC History & Development Market Hype and Distortions Created Unrealistic Expectations History and Development of AOCs Figure 1 1: IBM s Roadrunner HPC Showing AOCs Why Are AOCs Important? Figure 1 2: 4 channel and 12 Channel MSAs Figure 1 3: Sun Microsystems Constellation Subsystem Supporting 12x10GbpsCXP AOCs Issues That Will Limit AOC Growth Total Cost of Ownership Plays More Important Role Chapter 2: New Enabling Technologies Emerge AOC technologies Enables New Product Types Figure 2 1: New Products Based on AOC Technologies Converging Forces with the Right Timing Page 2

3 Figure 2 2 AOCs Will Impact Traditional Transceiver Markets and Create New Transceiver Products AOCs Compete with Parallell Transceiver and Direct Attach Copper Figure 2 3: Examples of Cabling Waterfalls A Few Trends to Reduce Cabling Nightmares! Gbps Has Become the New Interconnect Currency Past 10Gbps to 25G Expanding DataCenter Size & High Data Rates Plays too AOC Strengths Small Changes Generate Large Feature and Benefit Gains Closing Off Photonics to the Outside World New Integration and Innovative Manufacturing Techniques Figure 2 5: AOC Simplified Transceiver Construction Innovationn Blooms with Relaxed Interoperability Constraints Introduction of Silicon Photonics Figure 2 6: Luxtera s Silicon Photonic ACO Technologies Unique Benefits of a Closed Photonics System in Active Optical Cables AOCs May Enable Early Use of 25G and 40G VCSELs Sooner Silicon Photonics Enable Extremely Sensitive Photon Detection Silicon Photonics based AOCs Enable Very Fast Modulation AOCs Enable Radically Lower Power Consumption Compared to Copper Known Reaches Offers Lower Cost and Lower Power Consumption Traditional Multimode Fiber and 850 nm Wavelength Not Required Manufactured Cable Assemblies Not an Issue AOCs May Enable Inexpensive, Short Reach WDM Chapter 3: AOC Product Overview AOC Product Types and MSAs CX QSFP zqsfp CXP zcxp and ZXP Next Generation MSA Madness CXP/2, Extended CXP! Next Generation MSA Madness CFP/2, CFP/4! Page 3

4 3.1.8 SFP Figure 3 1: Main MSAs Form Factors for AOCs Breakout Hybrid AOCs Figure 3 2: AOC Product Examples Possible 10x10G vs 4x25G War and AOCs? WDM AOCs on the Horizon? Figure 3 3: WDM Channel Laser Source What Happened to 12x10G CXP AOC Segment? Don t Count CXP AOCs Out Yet! AOCs by Protocol Disambiguating InfiniBand Terminology Figure 3 4 High Speed Differential Signalingg Table 3 1: Various Protocol Data Rate Road Maps InfiniBand AOCs QDR Rules and SDR, DDR Fade FDR Fourteen Data Rate the Nest Step in EDR Enhanced Data Rate Someday Figure 3 5: InfiniBand Technology Roadmap Ethernet AOCs Fibre Channel AOCs SAS AOCs Figure 3 6: Mini SAS MSA and SAS Roadmap PCI Express AOCs Companies to Watch in PCI Express Optical Figure 3 7: AlpenIO PCI Express AOC, EOM and Line Cardd PCIeOE PCI Express over Ethernet Figure 3 8: Aprius PCI Expresss Systems Solutions Telecom, Military, Scientific Bit Blitzer s Consumer and Non Datacenter AOCs The Need for Speed is Missing Even with Converged AVDC Need is Still Missing Figure 3 9: Copper 5G USB and 10G HDMI Consumer Retail Prices Page 4

5 Consumer Optical Formats Optical HDMI. DisplayPort, USB Optical HDMI v 1. 4 at 10.2Gbps Figure 3 10: Consumer and Non Datacenter AOCs Examples Figure 3 11: Digital Signage Applications Optical DisplayPort v 1.2 at 10.8 and 21.6 Gbps Optical USB 3.0 at 5 Gbps HDBaseT (HDBT) DIIVA Digital Interactive Interface for Video and Audio at 13.5 Gbpss Figure 3 12: Format Comparisons What Happened with LightPeak? Figure 3 13: Thunderbolt and Light Peak Chapter 4 InfiniBand and HPCs Why InfiniBand AOCs Became Popular with HPCs? The Rise of China s HPC Effort Figure 4 1: TOP500.org HPC by Country Rise of SSDs and GPUs An AOC Opportunity HPC InfiniBand Interconnectt Architectures HPC Architectures 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 HPC Interconnect Architectures Figure 4 5: HPC Cluster Networking Architecture Typical Datacenter Interconnect Architectures Figure 4 8: Typical Fat Tree Datacenter Interconnect Architectures Chapter 5: AOC Competitive Landscape AOC Vendor Landscape Rapidly Changed in Shift in the InfiniBand Switching System and Silicon Supply Chain China Impacts AOC Market in an Unexpected Way Figure 5 1: Chinese Tianhe 1A HPC & Custom ASIC for Dual AOCs Page 5

6 Figure 5 2: Tianhe 1A HPC Custom ASIC for Dual AOCs Big Cabling Companies Move in Creating Shifts inn AOC landscape AOC Suppliers AOC and Transceiver Suppliers AOC, Transceiver and Cabling Suppliers Venture Funded Start ups AOC Subassembly and Electronics Suppliers Passive and Active Copper Competition with AOCs ) Passive CX 4 Copper ) Passive and Active QSFP Direct Attach Copper Going forward Parallel Optic Transceivers Chapter 6: Forecast and Analysis Forecast by Protocol & MSAs Figure 6 1: AOC Unit Shipment Forecast by Protocol 2010 & Unit Shipments Forecast and Analysis Figure 6 2: Unit Shipments Forecast by Dataa Rate Analyzing the 4x Shipment Data Figure 6 3: 4 Channel Unit Shipments Forecast by Data Rate Analyzing the 12x Shipment Data Figure 6 4: 12 Channel Unit Shipments Forecast by Data Rate Table 6 1: AOC Unit Shipment Forecast Pricing Forecast and Analysis Analyzing the 4x Pricing Data Figure 6 5: 4 Channel AOC Pricing Forecast Analyzing the 12x Pricing Data Figure 6 6: 12 Channel AOC Pricing Forecast Figure 6 7: Three 4x10G versess Single 12x10G AOC Pricing Delta Table 6 2: AOC Average Selling Prices Forecast Revenue Forecast and Analysis Figure 6 8: AOC Revenue Forecast Revenue Analysis Page 6

7 Figure 6 9: 4 Channel AOC Revenue Forecast Figure 6 10: 12 Channel AOC Revenue Forecast Table 6 3: AOC Revenue Forecast The AOC Analysis and Forecast Methodology Conclusions Page 7

8 Abstract Active optical cables (AOCs) emerged on the communications and consumer electronics scenes only very recently, the result of collaboratio n among keyy market players like IBM, Intel, and Sun Microsystems to eliminate shortcomings in existing transceiver and copper interconnect solutions, such as high power consumption n, heavyweight and longg 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 concerning 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 segmentt on the wider market, LightCounting has chosen to addd the AOC market to its growing list of researched markets to forecast. Taking into consideration the profiles of key vendors, current statisticss for AOC implementation and sales, and forces driving the development of AOC and similar new technologies, LightCounting paints a clear and compelling picture off this fledgling market as it now stands and forecasts the trajectory of this market through 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 Technologies using in AOCs are creating new products inn Embeddedd Optical Modules, and new parallel optic transceivers. AOC products developed forr the HPC area are rippling down to the commercial datacenter and eventually to consumer applications. Page 8