AOC refers to the communication cable that needs to use external energy to convert electrical signals into optical signals or optical signals into electrical signals in the communication process. Optical transceivers at both ends of optical cables provide photoelectric conversion and optical transmission functions
Despite the diversity of AOC products, nearly two-thirds of AOC shipments from 2020 to 2024 will come from two products --1*10G and 1*25G. Although demand for 100G products in HPC and data centres is rising rapidly, starting in 2019, HPC is rapidly moving to the next speed, 200G. At full capacity, the upcoming supercomputer would consume 243,000 100G AOC units.
The unique features of HPC cluster are well suited to AOC. The InfiniBand cluster is built primarily using AOC. The HPC market is growing with double data rate cycles and faster adoption.
Core router manufacturers use a "buy as you need" approach across multiple cases, so it is better to use AOC on a switch board than an embedded optical module (EOM). Now, core router manufacturers are finally switching from 12*10G CXP AOC to 12*25G CXP AOC. At the same time, a new core router with a decompressing case USES 100/400g AOC to connect to the white box.
In the top 500 machines, the amount of proprietary EOM interconnects is reduced, and they support clustered systems that interconnect with Ethernet, InfiniBand, or omni-path architectures. These machines all use AOC and DAC.
