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The Future of Optical transceiver in the 5G Era: The Trends and Solutions




Since 2010, the global demand for optical devices has been increasing year by year. In 2014, the demand for optical devices reached a peak. Although the demand for optical transceivers declined after that, in 2019, with the arrival of the 5G era, the global demand for optical transceivers re-entered the rapidly growing channel. Especially in the Chinese market, the demand for wireless optical devices is very large. The application of 25G optical transceiver in 5G fronthaul is a basic consensus. Both operators and equipment manufacturers will consider 25G optical transceiver as a mainstream transceiver in the early stage of 5G construction. Meanwhile, for 100G optical transceivers, the equipment manufacturer has an optimistic expectation for the growth rate of 5G optical transceivers.

With the gradual arrival of the global 5G era, this revolution has also brought about an explosion of the market demand for 5G optical transceivers and optical devices. What changes will the 5G era bring to the network architecture, and what requirements will these changes put forward for optical transceiver industry?

In the 5G era, the most intuitive difference between network architecture changes is that there is midhaul. Although midhaul may be a logical concept or a physical concept, it is the appearance of midhaul that makes more and more optical transceivers. In the 5G era, we still believe that fronthaul will be one of the most important fields in the development of optical transceiver industry in the whole optical device industry.

The New Generation Communication Network Puts Forward Several Core Requirements for Optical transceivers

Industrial Temperature Range

The fronthaul maybe ten kilometers and can cover most, or even almost 95% of the demand is within ten kilometers. At the same time, because most of the fronthaual in an outdoor environment, so there is no doubt that the whole fronthaul is required to have an industrial temperature. That is to say, originally we may require industrial temperature, now we even need an optical transceiver such as over industrial temperature. This is the first trend we pay attention to.

Save Fiber Solutions

Next, the architecture of the fronthaul is approaching from the original distributed to the present small centralized or even large centralized, which inevitably brings a problem, is the shortage of fiber resources.
It is necessary to save some solutions to address the shortage of fiber resources. This is the second trend we pay attention to.

Lower Cost

Third, as the frequency band of the whole 5G is higher than before, its coverage is smaller, so we need more base stations and more optical transceivers. From the perspective of operators, optical transceivers also need to be cheaper and the market needs lower cost optical transceivers.

Higher Rate

Finally, the spectrum bandwidth of the whole 5G will continue to increase. For example, it may be 100m now, and it may increase to 200m in the future. Then the bandwidth of the fronthaul will be higher and higher, we need to support the optical transceiver with a higher rate.  

Conclusion

In response to these specific practical requirements, the development of optical transceivers also shows a trend of evolution towards the update technology field. It may be necessary to make a comprehensive choice according to the development of the entire industrial chain and the needs of customers. The growth path of the optical transceiver rate in the future will be diversified.

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