Technical Insight
Optical Amplifiers in Huge DemandRaman to the Fore (Fiber Optics News)
The worldwide optical amplifier market for telecommunications is set to grow from over $3 billion in 2000 to $7.3 billion in 2004, representing a CAGR of 22%, according to Strategies Unlimited. Close to half of the 2004 market will be for Raman amplifiers, which are increasing in demand for emerging ultra-long-haul and 40 Gb/s networks. While EDFAs will continue to thrive in a variety of applications, the emergence of Raman amplification will lead to a substantial change in the design of EDFAs, as well as the mix of pump laser products needed to drive the amplifiers. New, lower-cost technologies will also emerge; these include erbium-doped waveguide amplifiers (EDWAs), where a substrate is doped instead of a fiber, and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Low cost EDFAs also promise to compete strongly. The report also notes that nearly $1.6 billion worth of lasers were manufactured in 2000 to pump the optical amplifiers. Almost all pump lasers are semiconductor lasers, but fiber lasers (which are themselves pumped by diode lasers) are also used for EDFA and Raman applications. Like the optical amplifier business, the pump laser market is also very dynamic, with many new suppliers poised to take market share from established players. CIBC World Markets has also issued a bullish forecast for Raman, estimating that the Raman amplifier market could rise from $245 million in 2000 to $4.8 billion in 2005. The driving forces are the need to move to more cost-effective networks utilizing higher channel counts, higher transmission speeds and longer distances. Raman amplifiers are complementary to EDFAs, and can reduce the overall cost of network amplification by 40% or more compared to networks that are wholly dependent on EDFAs. In turn, this will create a huge market for pump lasers operating at or near 1480 nm. Unit sales are forecast to increase from 60,000 in 2000 to over 2.1 million in 2005, which equates to a $2.3 billion market.
