5G, as the fifth-generation mobile communication network, has become part of the national strategy. Compared with 4G network, its peak theoretical transmission speed will be hundreds of times faster, which is quite worth expecting. With the advent of 5G era, the domestic communication industry will attract new changes.

5G brings great opportunities to the optical communication chip industry

Many people in the industry will call 2018 as the first year of 5G, which will undoubtedly bring huge opportunities to the industry. According to the prediction of relevant institutions, by 2020, China's base station scale alone will reach 100 billion market, and the overall market prospect of 5G industry is very broad.

5G brings great opportunities to optical communication chips. With the trend of three-network integration, the development of communication chips in the mobile communication, wireless Internet and wireless data transmission industries, especially the communication chips supporting 5G, will become the largest application market in the global semiconductor chip industry.

The lack of domestic optical chips has become the key to restrict the development of the communication optoelectronic device industry, which is also a big challenge for the development of 5G in China, because the domestic optical communication chips rely heavily on imports, especially in the high-end communication chips, and the independent research and development ability is relatively insufficient

In recent years, the state attaches more importance to the chip industry than in the past. For enterprises, the market prospect of optical communication chips is unlimited. Based on this, OFweek optical communication network edited and sorted out the layout of domestic enterprises on optical communication chip, and they will be the main body of this market in the future

Telecoms giants are piling in

When it comes to the domestic communication industry, huawei is an unavoidable enterprise. As the leader of the domestic communication industry, huawei's r&d strength in the mobile phone industry has been recognized by the industry, and optical communication chip is a relatively weak link.

Huawei is known to be very optimistic about the optical communication chip market. As early as 2013, huawei entered the chip field through the acquisition of Caliopa, a Belgian silicon photonics company, and later acquired CIP, a British photonics integration company. Huawei has been investing in optical communications chips for five years now.

Huawei Hays has revealed to the media that they have mastered the 100G optical module technology, but there is still a long way to go before the truly popular mass production chip. We believe that with huawei's technical strength, we will be able to make a breakthrough in the future.

In addition to huawei, fiberhome technology is also very optimistic about the optical communication chip market, through the establishment of subsidiaries to develop optical communication chips. Guangxun technology is one of the subsidiaries of fiberhome technology. Its chip self-sufficiency rate reaches 95% or so, but concentrates in the middle and low end chip. Recently, optical fast launched 120G CXP module and 100G QSFP28 SR4 module, which is the first time in China to achieve 100G speed optical module chip localization.

There are beacon communications investment in the flying spirit of the company also launched the flying spirit chip, a time has become the focus of hot debate. Huawei, fenghuo and other telecommunications giants have invested a lot in optical communication chips, and zte, datang and others have also been actively laying out their plans recently.

Laser, home appliances and other giants have also joined them

One of the characteristics of domestic optical communication chips is that everyone is at the same starting line, and the future market depends on the current investment and efforts, including laser giant huagong technology and household appliance giant hisense.

Huagong technology has made active layout in the field of optical communication, constantly improved the industrial chain, and improved the ability of high-end product research and development through the establishment of optical chip company.

Recently, relevant experts of huagong science and technology told the media that the company is stepping up the research and development of core chip technology, and is now ready for mass production. It is expected that 10G optical chips will be mass produced in the second half of this year, and 5G applied optical chips will be mass produced in 2019 to fill the gap in China.

Hisense, as a giant enterprise in the domestic household appliance industry, is very optimistic about the optical communication chip industry and its chip layout is very early. At the beginning of this century, hisense carried out optical communication service layout.

It is known that in 2005, hisense launched the first commercially available GPON module in the world. Just last year, they made a breakthrough in the technology of 100G PON optical modules. In terms of capital operation, hisense also actively acquired Japanese data optical communication company and American optical chip company to complete the industrial layout.

Many new faces have been added to the chip

Seeing the great prospect of the industry, many emerging companies have been developing optical communication chip technology. For example, solis photoelectric's 100Gb/s QSFP28 transceiver module has performance and cost advantages, easy to fly 100GQSFP28 optical module has been successfully developed, and 100gcfp-lr4 optical module has been officially commercialized.

In addition to these, there are haite high-tech, purple light zhanrui and other active research and development of high-end optical communication chip, strive for early mass production. I believe that in the near future, domestic communication chip will become the mainstream market.

Improving technical strength is the key

For the communication industry, transmission rate and security are the key. The reason why high-end optical communication chips are difficult to break through is that the technical requirements for materials and technology are high and complex, which are relatively weak compared with foreign aspects. In addition to these, the research of optical communication chips requires a large amount of funds, and the requirements on optical devices are very high. The optical industry chain in China still needs to be improved. Due to the lack of attention paid to photon chips before, integrated photons are highly dependent on imports. However, with the emphasis of the state and the increase of research and development, breakthroughs will be made in the field of technology in the future to change the import pattern of high-end optical communication chips.