Apple's influence on the VCSEL industry
Mobile and consumer applications are expected to generate revenue of $0.8 billion in 2020, reaching $2.1 billion in 2025, says Yole
The VCSEL market is expected to generate more than $1 billion revenue in 2020 and should reach $2.7 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 18.3 percent, according to Yole Développement's latest 'VCSELs - Market and Technology Trends 2020' report.
Telecom and infrastructure applications, mainly datacom, are expected to generate revenue of $277 million in 2020 and should reach $516 million in 2025 at a CAGR of 13.2 percent. Automotive applications like LiDAR or driver monitoring systems are not significant yet but could emerge in the mid- to long-term.
The VCSEL market was driven by datacom applications until 2017. Since then it has gradually been replaced by 3D sensing as the market driver, with Apple's implementation of the Face ID module in its iPhones an influential factor.
In the 'Apple iPad Pro LiDAR Module' report from System Plus Consulting, Sylvain Hallereau reveals Apple’s strategy and the related supply chain: “The LiDAR uses a VCSEL coming from Lumentum. Therefore, Lumentum is in tight collaboration with Apple and generated more than $100 million only with Apple’s smartphones. In its LiDAR, the laser is designed to have multiple electrodes connected separately to the emitter array. A new design with mesa contact is used to enhance wafer probe testing…”
Following the release of the iPhone X, several manufacturers decided to follow the Apple path and implement 3D sensing modules in the front side of their smartphones for face recognition. Since this happened, it was expected that other Chinese smartphone manufacturers would also implement such modules on the front side. This was the case the following year, but the trend rapidly declined. “
3D sensing modules moved from the front side to the world facing side, mainly for photography applications”, comments Pierrick Boulay from Yole. “This can be explained by several factors, including the cost of 3D sensing modules, the intellectual property around structured light solutions, and the competition with under-display fingerprint solutions that were more accessible to mid-price smartphones.”
For sure, this transition from the front side to the world facing side has an important consequence for the VCSEL market. It was expected that front 3D modules would use structured light solutions with two VCSELs. World facing 3D modules use Time of Flight solutions with only one VCSEL. In this dynamic context, mobile and consumer applications are expected to generate revenue of $0.8 billion in 2020. This should reach $2.1 billion in 2025 at a CAGR of 20.1 percent.
Since the adoption of VCSEL solutions for 3D sensing modules in smartphones, Apple is consuming the majority of VCSELs produced by Lumentum. In 2017, 41 million units were implemented in iPhones and in 2020, more than 325 million of VCSEL are expected to be used in iPhones. “This number represents more than 2/3 of the total VCSEL consumption for mobile 3D sensing,” points out Boulay. “Lumentum, as the main supplier of Apple’s VCSELs, is clearly leading the mobile and consumer market with 68 percent of the market in 2020.” Behind Lumentum, ams and Trumpf are completing the podium with market shares of 15 percent and 7 percent respectively.
The supply chain has also been impacted by following political decision and the trade war between US and China. In May 2019, the US banned Huawei. Lumentum stopped supplying Huawei and Huawei must find a new provider of VCSELs. This ban severely damaged Huawei’s supply chain. Huawei had no choice but to build its own supply chain. This is the rise of Vertilite. Other Chinese VCSEL suppliers are expected to emerge as other smartphone manufacturers like Oppo, Xiaomi, or Vivo could follow this trend and develop a local ecosystem to secure their supply chain.
