GigPeak Inc of San Jose, CA, USA (formerly GigOptix), which provides integrated circuits and software solutions for high-speed connectivity and high-quality video compression over the network and the cloud, has seen record quarterly orders for its 40Gbps QSFP+ and 100Gbps QSFP28 ICs for active optical cables (AOCs) and optical transceiver modules demanded by hyper-scale Web 2.0 data-center customers.
"This reflects our market-share domination as the sole merchant provider of ICs for the current generation of 40Gbps NRZ ICs, and our strong position in the initial shipments of our complete production chipsets for 100Gbps SFP+ and QSFP+ form factors, addressing active optical cables (AOCs) and transceivers for short-reach (SR) and long-reach (LR) Ethernet applications," says chief operating officer Dr Raluca Dinu. "While we are encouraged by the initial demand from data-center optical module customers for the 100Gbps NRZ complete chipset, we continue to see ever-growing demand for the current generation of 40Gbps NRZ, which will remain the workhorse for data-center connectivity for the next few years," he adds.
40Gbps, the first-generation networking technology to be deployed in data centers, has seen substantial growth over the last 3 years, and market analysts project continuous growth through 2018. Market research firms Ovum and LightCounting project that the 40Gbps SR and LR part shipment will remain the dominant speed, with volume growing from about 10 million units in 2015 to about 17 million units in 2018, before slowly transitioning to the 100Gbps NRZ generation of ICs. With GigPeak remaining the sole merchant provider of 40Gbps ICs for datacom optical modules, the firm has enjoyed an average compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) larger than 30% over the last 3 years, and expects to see the same growth for the next couple of years. For 100Gbps NRZ ICs, market analysts such as LightCounting project less than 1 million shipments of chipsets for data centers in 2015, growing to about 8 million chipsets in 2018.
In addition, to augment its data-center chipset solutions, GigPeak has announced sample availability of driver and transimpedance (TIA) ICs for 200Gbps short-reach (SR) and long-reach (LR) PAM4 Ethernet applications. This makes GigPeak the first firm to offer a complete chipset solution for all speeds applicable for data-center interconnectivity of 40Gbps currently and 100Gbps NRZ and 200Gbps PAM4 in future, says Dinu.
With a complete chipset solution offering what is claimed to be the lowest available power consumption per link, GigPeak believes that it will maintain significant market share in 100Gbps NRZ and benefit from the move into next-generation data-center connectivity at 200Gbps via its PAM4 ICs. Significant sales for PAM4 ICs are expected no later than 2020, if not earlier