A group of networking, semiconductor, and optics companies have formed the LPO MSA (Linear Pluggable Optics Multi-Source Agreement) to develop the specifications for networking equipment and optical modules required to enable a broad ecosystem of interoperable LPO solutions.
These specifications target the industry-wide challenge of reducing the power, cost, and latency while improving the reliability of high-speed optical interconnects.
Accelink, AMD, Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, Eoptolink, Hisense, Innolight, Intel, MACOM, NVIDIA, and Semtech are the founding members of the LPO MSA.
The MSA's initial target is an optimized optical interconnect with LPO modules on both ends of the link. The LPO MSA specifications will define the electrical and optical requirements to ensure interoperability between networking equipment and optics module vendors.
“There is an urgent need to reduce the network power consumption for AI and other high-performance applications,” said Mark Nowell, LPO MSA Chair. “LPO materially reduces power consumption both for the module and the system while maintaining a pluggable interface, providing the economics and flexibility customers need for high-volume deployments.”
New advantages
LPO offers several advantages.
The LSO cited that LPO offers more significant power savings for optical interconnect by removing the digital signal processing (DSP) function from the pluggable optical module.
This architecture takes advantage of the capabilities in each link segment to form a power, cost, and latency-optimized connection while maintaining the flexibility of pluggable optics.
Beginning at 100 Gbps per lane, the LPO MSA develops electrical and optical interoperability specifications for diverse high-density networking equipment and pluggable optical modules based on LPO technology.
Networking equipment includes switches, NICs, and endpoints with native Ethernet connectivity (such as GPUs). LPOs are ideal for high-speed, high-volume applications such as AI and high-performance computing.
Research firm Light Counting cited the adoption of LPO transceivers and co-packaged optics (CPO) “offer significant reductions in power consumption compared with standard re-timed transceivers with PAM4 DSP chips inside them.”
However, the firm added, "Removing the DSPs saves power, but more complex SerDes are needed to make direct drive possible.”
Market shows potential
The market for LPO is showing potential.
A recent QYResearch report revealed that the global LPO market is projected to grow from $21.2 million in 2023 to $2 billion in 2029 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 113.27% during the forecast period.
The global critical linear pluggable optics (LPO) manufacturers include Eoptolink, Coherent, CIG Tech, Zhongji Innolight, Hisense Broadband, and HG Tech. In 2023, the top five players had a revenue share of approximately 39.8%.
QYResearch estimates that the U.S. and Canadian markets for LPO will increase from $17.2 million in 2023 to over $1.1 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 99.4% from 2023 through 2029.
Despite the growth potential for LPO, Light Counting noted in the ninth edition of its Silicon Photonics report market growth will be evolutionary. “Conventional re-timed pluggables will continue to dominate the market for the next five years, and probably longer than that,” Light Counting noted in its report. “However, LPO/CPO ports will account for more than 30% of the total 800G and 1.6T ports deployed in 2026-2028.”
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