High-Speed Optical Transceivers for Data Center Connectivity

As modern data center networks demand high-capacity data transmission, the significance of high-speed optical transceivers remains crucial. This article delves into the current optical transceiver market situations and the benefits these transceivers bring to data center connectivity.

Current Situation of Optical Transceiver Market

Just like any other device, optical transceivers are also subjected to the high-capacity data transmission challenge. Despite the challenge, high-speed optical transceivers continue to be highly popular in data center networking industries. Many industry studies on optical transceivers trends suggest that the demand and significance of optical transceivers are growing by the day.

The demand for 100G optical transceivers for data centers have already reached 8.2 million. At the same time, the mass supply of 400G optical transceivers is driving the overall data center optical transceiver market to further expand its capacity.

With the further popularization of cloud services, 5G applications, and artificial intelligence, 800G optical transceivers are gaining momentum. Currently, high-speed optical transceiver purchases including 400G and 800G are mainly concentrated in overseas data centers, including the upgrade and migration of large cloud data centers such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.

What Boosts the Data Center High-speed Optical Transceiver Market?

According to Yole Développement's Optical Transceivers for Datacom & Telecom Market 2021 report, the market size of data center high-speed optical transceivers (100G/200G/400G/800G transceivers) is expected to reach 20.9 billion US dollars in 2026. So what is boosting the data center high-speed optical transceiver market?

Increased Investment in Data Center

In the past ten years, spending on data center infrastructure has changed a lot. Many companies have shifted away from investing in traditional hardware and software. Instead, they're choosing to use cloud service providers. This has led to a speedy increase in investment in high-capacity data center infrastructure. It's expected that various types of data centers will keep growing at a rate of more than 20% in the coming years.

Rapid Growth of Data Center Traffic

With boosted investment in data center infrastructure, data centers are also moving towards an ultra-large scale and higher data rates. Open systems, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cloud services, and the ever-expanding number of users and applications all contribute to rapid traffic growth.This exponential growth of data center traffic has driven the robust demand for high-speed optical transceivers. The transition from 100G to 400G and even 800G is already underway.

The Big Role of Optical Transceivers

High-speed optical transceivers play a big role in delivering high-capacity data center connectivity. The following lists what high-speed optical transceivers can offer for data centers.

Efficient Space Utilization

High-speed optical transceivers come in a compact size and various form factors such as QSFP28, QSFP56, and QSFP-DD. They help save a lot of space and are especially useful in tight networking spaces where high data rates are needed. In addition, high-speed optical transceivers are also hot-pluggable, which means they can fit into the existing network without the need to redesign the existing cable infrastructure. This further helps utilize the existing data center space to the fullest.

High-bandwidth Data Transmission

As the name suggests, high-speed optical transceivers are ideal for data center networks that require high-bandwidth data transmission. 100G QSFP28 transceivers can support a data rate of 400Gbps, due to their ability to provide higher data rates of 25Gbps on all four channels.

With Pulse Amplitude Modulation 4-level (PAM4) technology, 400G QSFP-DD transceivers can help you easily migrate to 400Gbps with only eight channels each of which supports a data rate of 50Gbps. Some 800G QSFP-DD transceivers even have the maximum data rate of 850Gbps (8x 106.25Gbps).

Varying Transmission Distances

High-speed optical transceivers are usually equipped with LC duplex or MTP/MPO-12 connectors, and deliver transmission distances varying from 70m to 80km. The transmission distances of optical transceivers decide their application scenarios. Therefore, high-speed optical transceivers can be applied to short-distance or long-distance direct connection and interconnection in data center networks.

FS High-speed Optical Transceivers

FS provides a diverse range of high-speed optical transceivers, spanning from 100G QSFP28 to 800G QSFP-DD, to enhance data center connectivity. The most favored ones among our customers are the 100G QSFP and 400G QSFP-DD optical transceivers.

Featuring low power, high density, and great quality, FS high-speed optical transceivers offer a popular way to help you quickly ramp up to 100G/200G/400G/800G data transmission. Most FS high-speed optical transceivers are quality tested for proven interoperability and compatibility in the targeted switch environment, which guarantees flawless and reliable operations.

Boasting advanced features and design, FS high-speed optical transceivers provide a blend of high performance, flexibility, and reliability, making them well-suited for applications in data center interconnect (DCI) and metro telecom.