12/31/2020, Fiber Optic Online, 2020 is an extraordinary year. The epidemic has had a profound impact on the global economy. For the optical communication industry, driven by the new infrastructure strategy in 2020, the optical communication market ushered in a new growth period, and made breakthroughs in China's progress towards the digital era. At the end of the year, we will review the imprint of the optical communication industry through ten key words.

1. Build inventory vs de-stock

Affected by the COVID-19, it has disrupted the order of the supply chain in various industries, and has had a significant impact on the global and the entire industrial chain. For optical communication enterprises, due to the roller-coaster fluctuations in the market this year, de-stocking and inventory building have become a puzzle for many enterprises.

In the first half of the year, the supply chain system affected by the epidemic was broken, and the construction of optical network under the background of the new infrastructure was superimposed, and the rush for inventory became the highlight of the resumption of work in the first quarter. The inventory of plugs, connectors, high-speed optical modules, production, testing equipment, and optical communication basic materials were all snapped up before May. So more enterprises are determined to build inventories. However, with the rapid cooling of the 5G prequel market in June, de-stocking has become the focus of many optical device enterprises in the second half of the year.

2. Fixed increase/financing/science and technology innovation board

In recent years, with the continuous expansion of the demand in the optical communication market, the targeted additional issuance concentrated in 2020, and more optical communication enterprises expanded their capacity and continued to develop. According to the statistics of Optical Fiber Online, in this year, 6 optical device enterprises collected funds, 2 optical device enterprises went to the open capital market, and more than 20 optical communication enterprises obtained financing at different levels.

Yongding Shares: It is proposed to increase 600 million yuan for special optical fiber, optical chip and other projects

New Eason: proposed to raise no more than 1.65 billion yuan for high-speed optical module production

Zhongji Xuchuang: plans to issue 3 billion yuan of convertible bonds for high-end optical module business

Huamai: raised about 396 million yuan for 5G wireless network-related projects

Tianfu Communication: non-public offering raised no more than 786 million yuan for high-speed optical engine project

Optical library technology: privately raised 710 million yuan to promote the research and development and industrialization of lithium niobate high-speed modulator chip

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Shijia Photonics: Landing on the science and technology innovation board to raise 500 million yuan for AWG and laser chip devices

Tengjing Technology: IPO will raise 380 million yuan for core optical device projects

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3. 5G forward

2020 is the first year for the large-scale construction of 5G base stations in China. The three major operators have completed the construction of 600000 5G base stations, and the operators have officially started the large-scale centralized purchase of 5G. The centralized purchase in the first half of the year has led to the prosperity of the optical module and optical device industry chain. However, under the influence of the global environment and the launch of various new schemes, the 5G prequel market fell into winter in the second half of the year, and the market demand fell precipitously.

4、 F5G、FTTR

With the full arrival of the 5G era of mobile communication, the fixed network has also developed to the fifth generation (F5G). At the 6th Wuhan International Optical Valley Forum (WIOF2020), enterprises from the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain such as operators, standards institutes and equipment manufacturers agreed that F5G FTTR will build a real gigabit family, further improve the family user experience, and even help the scale of typical fixed broadband application scenarios such as online education and remote office to enter the application stage during the epidemic.

5、 xWDM

As the 5G base station enters the large-scale construction period, 5G puts forward higher requirements for the forward transmission network with high reliability, high performance, low cost and easy deployment, which requires a technical solution that can respond quickly and meet the market demand with low cost. Therefore, the proposal of new xWDM solutions such as MWDM, LWDM and G.metro is precisely to solve the capacity improvement and further save the laying of optical fiber. The various WDM schemes are still in the game.

6. Fiber to the home market

Affected by the epidemic worldwide, the network traffic brought by various online applications has increased sharply, and the fiber-to-home market has once again entered the peak period of construction. The lagging demand for optical fiber to the home in Europe has re-driven the new demand for PON industrial chain, and the orders for optical fiber connectors, PON devices and modules are full. And the Chinese market has finally ushered in the scale demand of 10G PON.

7、 CPO

CPO is one of the hot topics on OFC this year. During OFC 2020, Ranovus announced to cooperate with IBM, TE Connectivity and Senko high-end device companies to build a multi-vendor ecosystem for Co-Packaged optical applications in data centers. However, the chord industry research center believes that high-density optoelectronic chip interconnection is the real opportunity for CPO. The real commercialization of CPO may take five years.

8、 400G

Due to the spread of the COVID-19, the data center 400G did not usher in a large-scale construction period in 2020, but in 2021 and 2022, the 400G optical module will gradually accelerate its deployment in the North American and Chinese markets.

9. Silicon polishing process platform

In December 2020, as the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences released the complete set of silicon optical technology PDK2.0, and the first batch of MPW silicon optical chips of CUMEC were successfully delivered, which marked the further maturity of China's silicon optical technology platform and laid a solid foundation for the further development of silicon optical technology.

10. DSP chip

In the future evolution of optical module technology, DSP chips supporting PAM4 technology are becoming more and more important, but few manufacturers can provide DSP chips, which are mainly concentrated in the United States. With the new changes in international trade, domestic DSP chips are bound to win. This year, with Credo and Orange Microelectronics releasing DSP chips, it is expected to change the current competitive pattern.