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IMPROVED FORECAST FOR ETHERNET TRANSCEIVERS TO FOLLOW A FLAT 2019, SAYS LIGHTCOUNTING


While 2019 may prove to be a flat year for sales of Ethernet transceivers, business will improve for the period 2020 to 2024, according to LightCounting’s latest High Speed Ethernet Optics report. It stated that, while the


industry is experiencing an exciting time, ‘it does not feel like a party for suppliers,’ due to a struggle among vendors to maintain profitability after continued price decline last year. Some of the 100GbE demand disappeared, said the report, because buyers had problems with inventory build-up. The development of new products requires a lot of investment, and customers may be reluctant to purchase these modules until the pricing is ‘right.’ All options are on the table for the next round of upgrades: continue with 100GbE, switch to 200GbE, 2x200GbE and 4x100GbE with breakouts. LightCounting said that it


expects demand for 2 x 200GbE transceivers to peak in 2022, as Google starts to transition to 2 x 400GbE modules. The forecast for 400GbE includes 4 x 100GbE DR4 modules selected by Amazon. These will be deployed in a breakout configuration with DR1 modules on the opposite side of the link. Effectively, each fibre will be carrying 100GbE traffic, aggregated into a DR4 module on one side. Deployments of true 400GbE transceivers will be limited in 2019-2021 to upper levels of switching in mega-data centres and core routers. Implementation of high-radix configurations in leaf and spine networks using 400GbE connectivity will be challenging, until switching ASICs reach 51Tb/s capacity, probably by 2022/2023. Facebook has stated its intent


to stay with 100GbE optics for now, and use 200GbE or 400GbE transceivers in the next upgrade


INTEL CAPITAL MAKES SERIES B INVESTMENT OF $20M IN TIBIT COMMUNICATIONS


California-based start-up Tibit Communications has received a second round of financing, totalling $20 million, from Intel Capital, the venture capital arm


of Intel Corporation. The financing will be used to fund Tibit’s market expansion as the company makes preparations to commercially deploy its flagship


product, the Tibit MicroPlug Optical Line Terminal. It also plans to accelerate its research and development work on additional pluggable access devices for passive optical networking (PON) later this year. Richard Stanfield, Tibit CEO


and president, commented: ‘The interest in deploying the Tibit solution across a variety of switch environments is a strong validation of the flexibility we’ve engineered into our solution.’ Dave Flanagan, senior


managing director at Intel Capital www.fibre-systems.com @fibresystemsmag


added: ‘At Intel Capital, we look to invest in disruptors – and delivering broadband access via a standard Ethernet switch is highly disruptive. Instead of expensive dedicated hardware boxes with proprietary software tied to a single vendor, users can access a broadband onramp, managed virtually from the cloud to the home or office. This enables significant savings of cost and power, and opens market opportunities to innovation.’


Issue 24 n Summer 2019 n FiBRE SYSTEMS 5


cycle in 2021/2022. Its new F16 data centre network architecture, will require up to four-times more optical connections compared to its previous design (F4). The first implementation of F16 topology will rely on 100GbE CWDM4 transceivers, boosting demand for these modules in 2020 to 2022. Facebook is already the largest consumer of 100GbE CWDM4 modules. It uses a sub-spec version of CWDM4 transceivers with 500m reach instead of 2km, also known as CWDM4-OCP (Open Compute Project). The


Changes to 100GbE Forecast


latest forecast database includes sub-spec CWDM4 modules as a separate category. The bad news, said


LightCounting, is that the 2019 outlook is pretty flat. Several suppliers reported slower than expected sales of 100GbE products in the second half of last year and it seems that this will extend into the first half of 2019. Once supply issues are resolved, however, the demand for CWDM4 is expected to skyrocket in the second half of 2019 and make a real difference to the market in the next three years.


Shuterstock Shutterstock


LightCounting


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