WASHINGTON, DC - OIDA Executive Director Michael Lebby shared the roadmaps developed by the Optical Industry Development Association with peers from the International Coalition of Optoelectronic Industry Associations (ICOIA) at the Association’s meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland in late September. According to Lebby, during the past year OIDA has developed roadmaps that show 10-year predictions for:
- Communications architecture, where the trend toward higher performance continues.
- Communications technology, where the trend is toward high speed and integration.
- Communications components, where the roadmap identifies significant R&D challenges to support future growth.
- 40-Gbps technology, where the trend is toward innovative ways to implement components and systems.
- Opto-InP foundry, where the roadmap supports industry re-organization with common platforms, modeling and better fab efficiency.
- Optoelectronic sensors, where the trend is toward smart, intelligent opto-sensing and opto-sensing systems.
“We now have roadmaps that extend to 2015,” said Lebby. “These roadmaps and market data provide strong indicators of where the optoelectronics market will see the most growth.”
According to Lebby, through the roadmap process, OIDA has identified areas that need attention in the industry; for example, it is now clear that the level of research in optoelectronic communications components is not at a level where the products emerging will keep up with the roadmap in 2015. As a result, “OIDA is taking a leadership role with key stakeholders in the InP fab segment to work towards common technology and product platforms that can be supported by InP foundries,” Lebby said.
The ICOIA is an international association of industry associations that was formed in the early 1990s by the OITDA (Japan), OIDA, and PIDA (Taiwan). According to Arpad Bergh, president of the OIDA, the ICOIA now has 10 member organizations that meet once a year to exchange information on four key areas: markets, technology (how it can meet market needs via technology roadmaps), emerging technologies, and the association’s agenda (main emphasis and government contributions to optoelectronics in each country). Each association must be national and interact with their respective federal government.
“This association gives everyone involved a better picture of what everyone else is doing, plus ammunition to go to their own governments to get more support for this industry,” Bergh said. “Another important aspect is that, after everyone gets to know all the other programs, there are natural items that emerge as collaborations. For instance, at the last meeting, we all agreed that there is a need for an optoelectronic textbook that could be used in high schools, and a number of associations said they would be interested in collaborating on something like this.”
Other areas of common interest include standards, environmental issues, and energy, he added.
“This technology is going to play a major role in alternative forms of energy, such as solar power and more efficient light sources,” Bergh said.
