Silicon photonics is on the verge of experiencing dramatic uptake in optical transceivers, market research firm Yole Développement has reported, with the technology set to capture 35 per cent – almost $4 billion – of the optical transceiver market by 2025, up from just a few per cent in 2016.

The transceivers are expected to be used mostly for intra-data centre communication, according to Yole, with the strongest demand being for 400G (400 Gigabits per second), and 200G acting as an intermediate step between 100G and 400G.