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Part I:Photonics Assembly in an EMS Environment
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
This first of a two-part series discusses the explosion of Web-based applications that has driven growth in network hardware requirements, requiring OEMS to turn to EMS providers as a means of meeting manufacturing needs quickly.
By Glenn Woodhouse
The Internet has become a key means of doing business in both our professional and personal lives. This explosion of users, applications and data traffic, however, is placing considerable demands on the existing networking infrastructure and technology.
At the forefront of the quest for expanding network bandwidth lies new optical networking hardware technology, driving rapid growth in demand for photonic components and modules, and integrated optoelectronic networking cards and systems. Dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technology, for example, is gaining tremendous popularity primarily because of its capacity to provide a significant increase in the capacity of fiber optic data transmission systems. DWDM is an optical technology that couples many wavelengths (>40) in the same fiber, thus effectively increasing the aggregate bandwidth per fiber to the sum of the bit rates of each wavelength. Thus, the carriers can get more from the existing fiber network infrastructure for less cost by adding technology such as DWDM hardware without adding more fiber (i.e., burying cable) to increase the capacity of the network. This is one compelling reason to expect the continued growth in optical networking hardware and the continued increase in speed of optical data transmission rates.
The economic downturn resulted in a pause for 2001/2002, but according to a recent report by Dataquest Inc., forecasted sales of $36 billion in the optical transmissions systems segment in 2003 should finally eclipse the $33.8 billion in global sales realized in the year 2000. The expected growth of photonics in the datacom space, combined with the significant trend toward manufacturing outsourcing over the last decade, has optical OEMs turning to the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry as a means to scale. EMS companies garnered 20 percent of this market in 2000, with an anticipated penetration rate increasing to 25 percent in 2003. Thus, the outsourcing of optical network hardware manufacturing is anticipated to increase to an approximate $9 billion market opportunity for EMS players by 2003. Optical network hardware uses virtually the same SMT-intensive electronics as the traditional copper network hardware. However, fiber optics present new challenges in the incorporation of on-board active components such as lasers, switches, photo diodes and passive optical components, including splitters, filters, multiplexers and demultiplexers (mux/demux), optical fiber, and fiber connectors. All these photonic components require interconnection, mounting and testing processes outside traditional EMS competencies. In the past, these skill-intensive processes, residing in OEM labs and plants, have not lent to mass production automation. Herein lies the challenge for the technology transfer from OEM to EMS.
The primary obstacles facing the rapid scaling of optical component manufacturing today lies in two key areas: automation and knowledge transfer. Although there is some emerging semiautomated manufacturing solutions, the size, delicacy, diversity and historical volumes of photonic components present a material-handling dilemma that impedes full-scale automation and the development of turnkey in-line assembly equipment. Because of this, past assembly activity primarily has been performed manually by highly skilled workers in the labs and factories of the OEM. This skill set is very different than that required to operate an automated SMT environment.
Glenn Woodhouse, formerly of Plexus, may be reached at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories; (509) 334-8726; E-mail: glenn_woodhouse@selinc.com.
Market growth forcasts ($ millions) for selected optical components markets, 2001-2005.
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