The optical networking market is in a peculiar situation. While manufacturing facilities have closed during the global coronavirus pandemic, the demand for networking and cloud services was even higher due to the quarantine of people who work and communicate from home, and who take advantage of digital entertainment connected to the internet. It seems that the optical communications market should recover rapidly.

Optical transceivers are widely used in server network cards, switches, routers and wireless base station equipment in a variety of network architectures and applications. Distances covered start from less than 50 meters for server and storage interconnections in data centers and enterprise networks to more than 800 kilometers in telecom networks. Furthermore, the exponential increase of capacity of digital communication networks and growing numbers of optical ports impact optical module technology hugely. Basically three material platforms are used in today’s optical transceivers – Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), Indium Phosphide (InP) and Silicon Photonics. Each of these technological platforms provides cost-effective solutions and addresses different applications based on distance within fiber-optic networks.


Revenue generated by the optical transceiver market reached around $7.7B in 2019 and is expected to reach $17.7B in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate for 2019-2025 (CAGR2019-2025) of 15% according to the report Optical Transceivers for Datacom & Telecom 2020. This growth is driven by high optical module cost erosion coupled with high volume adoption of high data rate modules above 100G by big cloud service operators and national telecom operators, which results in an increase in fiber-optic network capacity. Its broad product selection and innovative technology have made 3C-LINK 100G, 200G, 400G the optical module manufacturer of choice for all major networking equipment vendors worldwide