Optical communication technology in the 2015 forum held recently, Ovum analyst Daryl Inniss speech, analyze the optical communication opportunities in the data center field. He said the data center network is driving demand for high-bandwidth connections between data centers and data center for internal. Terabit-level connection between the data center needs; and internal data centers require more cost connection to 100G. However, the high cost of optical networks market slowdown in the rate of expansion is a fundamental problem.

Active Optical Cable (AOC) application is a video and consumer electronics markets. 4K, 8K ultra-high resolution image is gradually into people's lives, these products and their applications involve the transmission of large amounts of data, but also need the support of optical interconnection technology.

The rapid development of information technology, the popularity of network-based technology advances, prompting data center construction continues toward large-scale, high-density, high transfer rate, pluralism, virtualization, intelligent, green direction. At the same time, for faster data transfer rates, smaller footprint, lower energy consumption needs, making the data center physical infrastructure as an important part of the cabling system more and more people's attention. Fiber and copper cabling system in the data center are two basic transmission medium, compared with copper systems, fiber-optic network with greater bandwidth, faster transfer rates, longer distances, more slender volume, and stronger anti-interference ability and so on. Therefore, although limited by the high price factor optical fiber, optical fiber can be completely replaced by copper, but the data center construction "Light of Copper" trend is inevitable.

Data center / cloud computing system needs higher bandwidth and lower power consumption and more urgent, AOC is one of the best solutions to meet this demand. AOC (active optical cables) compared with the copper interconnect has many significant advantages, such as lower on the system link transmission power, weighs only a quarter of direct-attached copper, copper-half volume slightly, and room cabling system has better air flow heat dissipation than copper cable bend radius can be made smaller, over longer distances (up to 100 to 300 meters), and the error rate is also better transmission performance , BER can reach 10 ^ -15. Compared with the optical transceiver module, AOC is not exposed due to the presence of optical interface, optical interface clean and contaminated problem does not exist, the system greatly enhanced stability and reliability, and reduce maintenance costs the engine room.

Active Optical Cable Products is one of the main interconnection between these core devices, the active optical cable market research report from CIR's display, its market size in 2012 reached $ 720 million, this figure is expected to double by 2017, reaching $ 1.9 billion, promising.