At the beginning of 2021, VCSEL technology has emerged as a low‐cost, high‐volume business opportunity for large‐scale manufacturers, comparable to other semiconductor technologies such as GaN, SiC RF, and power devices, LEDs, displays, photovoltaic solar cells, Si‐photonics, and InP‐based semiconductor lasers. A schematic of market sizes for different VCSEL technologies are shown in Figure 1.21. The total photonics market is expected to reach about $80 billion by 2025 from $24 billion in 2020. The authors consider two types of opportunities for VCSEL‐based commercial products, namely core and edge markets.
The core market includes four major areas: datacom, 3D sensing (mobile), 3D imaging LiDAR (automotive), and industrial heating. In these areas, VCSEL is a proven technology addressing strong societal needs and appears to be gaining a major market share with readily available commercial products.
The edge markets include defense and aerospace, medical (OCT and iris scans), gas sensing, gaming, global AR/VR/MR, surveillance (IP and CCTV cameras), 3D printing, laser printing, and many other applications. Other edge markets such as robotics, AI, and smart‐home appliances either have small market share or are still developing prototypes for final stages of release for commercial products [58].
Figure 1.21 Total addressable market of VCSELs at module levels till 2025.
Source: B. D. Padullaparthi [copyright reserved by author].
The total addressable market projected for VCSEL’s core and edge areas at module level is expected to be around $40 billion by 2025, where the core part alone is forecast to be about a $24 billion by 2025 market, as shown in Figure 1.20.
The chip level projection for datacom, telecom, mobile consumer, automotive, medical, industrial, and defense fields is estimated to be about $4.8 billion by 2025, that is 24% of the corresponding module level projections.
With an increasing number of autonomous cars with LiDARs by 2030, it is anticipated that the market size of the automotive industry will exceed that of consumer electronics, prompting a large number of VCSELs to be used for long‐distance ranging as flash or scan LiDARs. Further, several edge and other markets projected a total reaching $80 billion. When a fraction of 15% (about $8.4 billion) is assumed for add value to core fields, the total addressable market size at module level will be at least about $32.4 B, as shown in Figure 1.20. Some chip level details are given in Chapter 3.
In summary, it is concluded that VCSEL is finding a vibrant commercial prospect for high‐volume manufacturing and product demands that are further expanding.
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