LightCounting Reports Active Optical Cable Market to Grow to $192 Million by 2013

EUGENE, OR--(Marketwire - December 21, 2009) - The AOC market will predominantly use InfiniBand to interconnect supercomputer systems through 2012, according to the AOC report by LightCounting LLC, the premier opto-electronic transceiver market research company. Other commercial protocols, such as GigE, SAS, Fibre Channel, and PCI Express, will not reach significant volumes until 2012. By 2013, the AOC segment will grow to $192 million, achieving 38.5% CAGR, with revenues split nearly evenly between higher volume 4-channel format and the higher priced 12-channel format. Consumer electronics interconnects, including optical versions of HDMI, DisplayPort, USB and Intel's LightPeak, are not likely to achieve notable volumes until 2012.

"AOCs are positioned to become a disruptive force in telecommunications and datacom transceiver markets in the near future," said Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and Lead Analyst, LightCounting. "New manufacturing and device technologies developed in the AOC segment will spread beyond to other traditional transceivers products, enabling lower costs, increased features and performance, and AOCs will expand market opportunities for transceiver vendors by opening up new markets currently served by copper interconnects."

"Given the growing significance of the AOC market and the need to address the sometimes overblown claims circulating in the media regarding the impact of this segment on the wider market, we have chosen to add AOCs to our forecast," said Vlad Kozlov, CEO and Founder, LightCounting. "Until the systems infrastructure has been created and the basic need to transfer information at speeds greater than 10 Gbps appears, however, AOCs will remain the purview of InfiniBand interconnecting supercomputers."

The AOC Report analyzes the profiles of key vendors, the forces driving AOC development, and the current statistics for AOC implementation and sales, with a forecast through 2013, broken out by 4-channel and 12-channel data rates. The AOC Report is available now.

About LightCounting

LightCounting LLC is the premier opto-electronic transceiver market research company, offering quarterly transceiver market survey results and forecasts based on confidential data provided by more than 25 leading transceiver vendors. LightCounting is the opto-electronic transceiver market's source for accurate, detailed and relevant information necessary for doing business in today's challenging economic climate. Privately held, LightCounting is headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, with offices in Silicon Valley. For more information: www.LightCounting.com or 408.962.4851.

To purchase LightCounting Reports, please contact Megan Andreosky, megan@lightcounting.com.