CATV infrastructure amplifier market to reach $225m

2014-03-05

With CATV and broadband services becoming integral parts of service providers bundles, network infrastructure is evolving rapidly to keep up with growing demand, notes the Strategy Analytics GaAs and Compound Semiconductor Technology (GaAs) service forecast and data model, which describes trends for semiconductor-based amplifier building blocks used in the evolution of hybrid fiber coax (HFC) and fiber-based networks.

The CATV infrastructure amplifier building block forecast and data model details the market outlook for various amplifier building blocks used in different locations in the network architecture. It also segments shipments by function, process technology and geography.

The report ‘CATV Infrastructure Amplifier Market Forecast: 2013-2018' reckons that:

• to keep up with data increases, the number of homes served per node will decrease, so the number of nodes and node amplifiers will increase;

• gallium arsenide (GaAs) will remain the technology of choice for the amplifier building blocks, but gallium nitride (GaN) will see the fastest growth, reaching nearly $50m in revenue by 2018;

• the size of the population, along with aggressive efforts to deploy CATV and broadband services, will propel the Asia-Pacific region to account for more than 50% of the revenue generated by the amplifier building blocks; and

• the new features allowed by the DOCSIS 3.1specification will enable the HFC network to evolve to meet the growing data and services demand.

“Driving fiber deeper into networks stands as a competitive threat for semiconductor-based amplifier building blocks,” notes Eric Higham, director of the Strategy Analytics’ GaAs service. "The recent ratification of the DOCSIS 3.1 specification - which allows more bandwidth, different upstream and downstream frequency splits, and more efficient data transmission - will ensure that the HFC network architecture keeps pace with consumer demands,” he adds.

“This segment was one of the first commercial markets to adopt GaN technology,” says Asif Anwar, director for ADS. “While GaAs will still figure prominently, the performance advantages of GaN will make this the fastest-growing technology for the amplifier building blocks.”

Strategy Analytics forecasts that the market for semiconductor-based amplifier building blocks used in CATV infrastructure will grow to nearly $225m in 2018.