Photonic ICs (PIC) Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Components, Application, Integration and Materials

Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC), functions analogous to electronic ICs, utilizes photons instead of electrons to carry data. Photons, unit of light, travels comparably much faster than other data carriers, hence data transfer speed has increased dramatically. Global photonic ICs market is expected to rise at a remarkable rate as it offers substantial enhancements in system size, power intake, cost, and dependability.

On the basis of application, the global photonic IC market is segmented into biophotonics, optical communication, sensors, optical signal processing and nanophotonics. The global photonic IC market is further segmented on the basis of integration methods deployed into monolithic integration, hybrid integration, and module integration. In addition, the global photonic IC market is segmented on the basis of components, namely: modulators, lasers, multiplexers/de-multiplexers, detectors, optical amplifiers and others (such as attenuators, wavelength converters, etc.). The market is segmented on the basis of materials, namely: lithium niobate (LiNbO3), indium phosphide (InP), silicon (Si), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and silica-on-silicon.

Ongoing limitation of electronic ICs in search of adding more transistors over a single silicon substrate has pressured the industry to invent a substitute. Furthermore, existing principal players have developed monolithically combined InP-based photonic ICs that assimilates more than 600 components/utilities in a single chip. As a result, there is an enormous competition in the marketplace as every single player is aiming at inventing photonic IC-based products which would be capable of integrating large quantities of functions/utilities at low cost. Budget and magnitude saving accomplished by integrating diverse optical modules, including modulators, detectors, and lasers, into a single package is the key focus area for the players within the photonic ICs market. Rising demands for high speed communication combined with developing application zones, specifically in the arena of sensing, optical communications, and biophotonics have powered the progress of the global photonic ICs market. In addition, high power efficiency, inexpensive fabrication, improved reliability, and high data transfer rates offered by photonic ICs are factors which are expected to propel this market. The use of photons for the drive of offering high-speed information processing, computation, and data transmission offers a sound prospect intended for the development of photonic ICs market.

Optical sensors application is an emerging application in this marketplace, which is utilized in fields like aerospace, defense, transportation, energy, and medicine. Quantum computing, a technology soon to be commercialized, is another segment that promises significant utilization of photonic ICs. Photonic ICs are similarly used in biomedical arena, wherein InP-established use of definite photonic ICs are being utilized for the diagnostic examination of opaque skin tissues.

Optical communications is a leading application sector in the photonic IC market, whereas biophotonics and sensing are the other key application segments. Even though the present-day input from optical signal processing segment is the minimum, it is anticipated to witness strong progress post the commercialization of quantum computing.

North America leads the global photonic IC market, trailed by Europe and Asia Pacific. While North America is the chief photonic IC market, Asia Pacific is anticipated to witness strong growth, overtaking Europe and eventually North America. The development in Asia Pacific can be majorly credited to growing demand from optical communications and biophotonics applications. The worldwide photonic IC market is extremely disjointed and is branded by the presence of large number of players. Some of the top players in the marketplace comprise Alcatel-Lucent S.A., Infinera Corporation, JDS Uniphase Corporation, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Avago Technologies Ltd., Intel Corporation, Agilent Technologies, Ciena Corporation, Emcore Corporation and NeoPhotonics Corporation.