E.2.0 Markets
 
 Plastic optical fibers applications cover a wide range of industries. Unlike the telecommunications field, if the market goes down in one sector, there are other industries that will pick up the slack. While some investors have been burned by investments in optical network start-ups, the POF industry is not tied to any one industry application. In addition, developments for any one sector could have a dramatic impact on all the others. For example, the ability of automobiles to drive the price down could have a large impact on the rest of the industry.
 
 The following are the key market sectors, but others are developing, such as smart fabrics, medical diagnosis and treatment, and sensors.
 
 - Automotive
 - Consumer
 - Computer data networks and interconnects
 - Industrial controls
 - Home networking
 - Aerospace
 - Medical
 - Telecommunications (interconnects)
 
 IGIC has published a report detailing the "Top 40 POF Existing and Potential Markets.
 
 In addition, the increased interest in “Homeland Security” in the US could also have a major impact on the demand for low-cost, mass-produced sensors that can be purchased at Home Depot and other similar home improvement centers, sensors that can be installed by consumers.
 
 The following are descriptions of the major market sectors and the market drivers.
 
 E.2.1 Automobiles
 
 Daimler-Benz and BMW have led the way in the use of POF in automobiles. Over 1 million POF nodes were installed in “S” line Mercedes-Benz automobiles in 2000. The number has increased to 55 million by the end of 2007, in 50 different models of cars, from the low end to the high end. Late in 2000, sixteen European automakers ratified the “MOST” standard, which specifies POF for data networks in automobiles. By developing a standard that is accepted by 16 European manufacturers, suppliers can produce to the same standard for 16 customers and thus can obtain economics of scale. There is tremendous pressure by the automakers on their suppliers to reduce prices. This will have a major impact on all sectors of the POF industry to realize the promise of POF’s low cost! Japanese and America automakers are developing their own standard. A version of 1394 has now been developed by the 1394 Trade Association (1394TA) and the IDB (Association of Automotive Suppliers). This digital multimedia data bus standard IDB-1394 will operate at speeds up to 400Mbps.
 
 The Consumer Electronics Association is developing standards and gateways for the use of MOST in the automotive “aftermarket,” which will further increase the market
 
 In 2007, for the first time, two Korean auto manufacturers — Hyundai and Kia — announced that they will adopt the POF MOST standard. In 2011, over 70 models of automobiles have over 100 million POF nodes installed.
 
 E.2.2 Consumer Electronics
 
 The recent completion of the 1394b standard — which increases the distance between nodes of the existing 1394 standard from 4.5 meters to 100 meters, and increases speeds from 400Mbps and eventually to 3.2Gbps — specifies a low-cost high increase of usage of POF as one of the transmission media (50 meters at speeds of 200Mbps). Sony and other Japanese firms are leading the charge to increase the usage of POF for video games and video cameras using 1394 interfaces. In the US, Apple Computer is promoting 1394 through its trade name “FireWire.” IGIC forecasts the number of 1394-capable devices to grow from 700 million in 2007 to 1 billion by 2010. This could be a remendous market for POF if only a small share is realized.
 
 The MOST standard is being considered by some consumer electronics firms, especially in the audio and professional sound field, such as Harman Becker and Bosch.
 
 The adoption of the MOST 155Mbps standard could have a major impact on the consumer electronics market. At CES-2008, the MOST Cooperation demonstrated 8 standard TV channels, 2 HDTV channels, and an Ethernet data channel over a 155Mbps link with bandwidth to spare.
 
 E.2.3 Industrial Controls
 
 Industrial controls have been one of most stable and largest markets for POF because of their need for transmission media to withstand electromagnetic interference. Standards such as “SERCOS,” “Profibus,” and Interbus have been available for a number of years and specify POF as a transmission medium. With the recent acceptance of Ethernet in the industrial environment, this should bode well for POF but will require the development of a complete POF solution including NIC cards, hubs, routers, etc.
 
 E.2.4 Interconnection
 
 The interconnect market includes a wide range of interconnect products, including circuit boards, backplanes, chassis-to-chassis, and rack-to-rack applications.
 
 Interconnects for large terabit routers, optical cross-connects, and optical switches are becoming a major issue as these devices reaching terabit speeds. OC-192 (10Gbps) interfaces with the potential growing to OC-768 (40Gbps) are now a reality. The pressure is on reducing the cost and complexity and improving reliability of backplanes for component-to-component, board-to-board, chasis-to-chasis, and rack-to-rack wiring.
 
 At the same time, more and more systems are being packed into central offices, data centers, and co-location facilities requiring the interconnection of different types of equipment. In addition, some digital cross-connect products require 70 bays of equipment that have to be interconnected. Speeds between bays require 40Gbps, making this one of the first markets for 40G components. These interconnections could range from a few inches to tens of meters, well within the range of existing or new plastic optical fibers, which have exhibited transmission speeds of up to 11Gbps over 100 meters.
 
 An evolving market is that of “server optical interconnects,” which are essentially supercomputers. These have tremendous data transfer requirements in the tens of Gbps over 10-50 meters.
 
 E.2.5 Home Networks
 
 Home networks are starting to emerge as a major market segment for POF, driven by the need to network computers and audio/video devices in the home. Several different approaches exist, including 1394b, powerline, Carrier Ethernet, PnP (phone line), and wireless. No one system now dominates, but as home electronics become digital and the need for high speeds increases, 1394b and POF become an ideal network solution to interconnect clusters of home network appliances.
 
 At OFC 2008, several companies exhibited Ethernet-over-POF home network backbones and device interconnection. One had developed a backbone POF home network with RF distribution in the room.
 
 Over the past year, there has been a great deal of activity in Europe to introduce IPTV, and interest in POF to provide a link from the home gateway to the set-top box. European telcos in Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland are considering “do-it-yourself POF kits” to guarantee quality of service (QoS) for consumers. This could be a major entry for POF into the home. This edition of the POF Market Study takes this potential opportunity into account in its new forecast for the home networking market.
 
 E.2.6 Medical
 
 The medical instrument and sensor market is a small but growing POF market. POF provides patient isolation from potentially harmful voltage sources as well as in machines with high electromagnetic fields such as X-ray devices, CAT scanners, etc.
 
 E.2.7 Homeland Security
 
 Another market driver that is just emerging is that of “Homeland Security,” which could require POF technology for secure communications such as fiber to the desktops, POF sensors and systems for monitoring, and data collection systems for ships, aircraft, and other vehicles.
 
 E.3.0 POF as a Disruptive Technology
 
 Some in the industry are also looking at POF as a “Disruptive Technology,” as described by Prof. Christiansen of the Harvard Business School in his recent book called “The Innovators’ Dilemma.” POF has all the characteristics of a “disruptive technology” described in his book.
 
 E.4.0 Market Forecasts
 
 Based on these seven major market segments, IGIC expects the market to grow from $1,336 million in 2007 to over $3 billion in 2011, as shown in the following exhibits, E-1 and E-2. As an indication of the number of devices required in a consumer application, the forecast of the number of 1394 devices worldwide in shown in exhibit E-3.
 E.5.0 Technology
 
 POF technology is developing along two fronts. Improvements are being made in sources for POF such as the resonant cavity LEDs (RC-LEDs) which are similar to but simpler than VCSELs, and operate at 650nm. This allows improved performance of POF links using standard step index (SI) PMMA. Further improvements are possible with the potential development of graded index POF (GI-POF). In March 2011, two important announcements were made at OFC-2011:
 
 1. Georgia Tech announced that it has achieved 40Gbps over 100 meters of PF GI-POF.
 2. A group of European companies, led by Siemens, announced 1Gbps using LEDs over 50 meters.
 
 E.5.1 Fiber Loss Trends
 
 The loss characteristic trends over time of step index PMMA, deuterated step index (SI-d8), graded index deuterated (GI-d8), and perfluorinated graded index (PF-GI) are summarized in Exhibit E-4. Since 1960, there has been a steady improvement in the loss of PMMA-type fibers to as low as 60dB/km at 570nm. The best results to date have been 15dB/km at 1300nm using perfluorinated graded index fibers. New partially chlorinated GI-POF has been developed. Microstructured POF continues to be developed by researchers at the University of Sydney.
 
 E.5.2 Bandwidth Trends
 
 There has been a steady increase in bandwidth starting with multistep index PMMA to the recent perfluorinated graded index (PF-GI) fibers. This trend is summarized in exhibit E-5.
 
 E.5.3 Step Index (SI) and Graded Index (GI) PMMA
 
 The following figures show the systems capabilities of SI and GI POF. POF data links using step index POF have been shown to be capable of 500Mbps up to 50 meters. The capabilities of SI and GI fiber were summarized in a paper by Olaf Ziemann of POFAC. These results are shown in Exhibit E-6.
 
 E.5.4 Perfluorinated Graded Index POF (PF GI-POF)
 
 The development of perfluorinated plastic optical fiber has been spearheaded by Professor Koike and colleagues at Keio University and Asahi Glass. Perfluorinated POF (PF GI-POF) has a loss of less than 50dB/Km from 650 to 1300nm, and can be made with a graded index profile. Developments in loss of PF GI-POF are shown in exhibit E-4, which shows that losses as low as 70dB at 650nm and 15dB at 1300nm have been achieved. The advantage of this fiber is that all the low-cost components developed at 850nm and 1300nm for glass fibers can be used with perfluorinated fiber.
 
 Exhibit E-7 shows the chronological history of some of the laboratory results obtained using PF GI-POF. To further complete the chronology, Nexans reported at POF-2004 the development of data links with bandwidth of 59Hz over 100 meters using CYTOP GI-POF with a loss of 20dB/km at 850nm.
 
 E.5.5 Other POF Technologies
 
 In addition to source and fibers, research is also being carried out on POF optical amplifiers, WDM systems, and fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). In 2002, the first results were reported on polymer photonics crystal fibers by the Optical Fiber Technology Center at the University of Sydney in Australia. They called their fiber a “microstructured polymer optical fiber (mPOF).” By 2004, the Optical Fiber Technology Center had reported fibers with 0.8dB/m at 760nm and with a bandwidth of greater than 2.46bps over 100 meters. The message is that there is a great deal of ongoing research being carried worldwide out to develop POF materials, components, subsystems, and applications.
 
 E.6.0 POF Associations and Interest Groups Trends
 
 Another indication of the growing interest in POF is the number of the trade associations and consortia that have been developed in various countries to promote POF. The importance of these groups is an indicator of industry interest and that a market exists. The following is a list of the various POF organizations worldwide.
 
 1. POFTO in the US
 2. French POF Club
 3. POF Consortium in Japan
 4. Recently formed “POF Consortium” in Korea
 5. German alliance formed by the POF Applications Center (POFAC) at the University of Nuremberg
 6. UK POF Group
 7. Brazilian POF Group
 
 E.7.0 What are the Major Impediments to Further Developments in the POF Industry?
 
 There are a number of impediments to the growth of the POF market, which are described in detail in this report, a few of which are listed here.
 
 - Lack of a major manufacturer(s) pushing POF
 - Lack of awareness of POF technology and applications by design engineers
 - Difficulty in obtaining information about POF
 - Lack of a strong, well-financed trade association to promote POF
 - Lack of university or high-school course on POF
 - No central place to purchase POF components
 - Lack of total POF solutions for networks such as Ethernet
 - Lack of a concerted promotion of POF in standards across all industries
 - Little research and development on POF applications
 
 E.8.0 Some POF developments in 2010/2011
 
 This is a new section added to this updated POF Market Study to show some of the recent POF developments in 2010 and 2011
 
 - 40G over 100m of PF GI-POF at 1,550nm
 - 1Gbps over 1mm SI-POF using LED technology
 - Do-it-yourself POF kit for IPTV
 - Connectionless POF — OptoLock
 - Variety of modulation schemes developed
 - 10Mbps over 400 meters of 1mm SI-POF (4-PAM, 8-PAM)
 - 100Mbps over 200 meters of 1mm SI POF (4-PAM, 8-PAM)
 - 1Gbps over 100 meters of 1mm SI-POF (quatrature like mod. formats QPSK, QAM-X)
 - 10.7Gbps over 300 meters 62.5-micron PF GI-POF
 - SMI connectors
 - Fast Ethernet transceivers using MOST tecnology
 - POF Ethernet switches from Luceat (Italy), Diemount (Germany), Vaying (China), DiMoto (Australia), NYCE (Canada)
 
 E.9.0 Opportunities
 
 IGIC has identified four areas of opportunity for companies either already involved in or planning to enter the POF market.
 
 1. Low-speed Links
 A major market for POF exists for simple low-speed point-to-point links where there is a problem with electromagnetic interference, need for electrical isolation, etc. Existing POF technology and products are readily available. However, because of the lack of awareness, availability of information, and aggressive marketing, these low-speed markets are being served by copper cables rather than POF. The POF industry has focused on the higher-speed applications, which are tougher to crack and require advanced technology. The industry should use these lower-speed applications (See exhibit E-8) to build a base and migrate to the higher speeds.
 
 2. Systems Solutions
 There also is an opportunity for companies that provide total systems solutions such as Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet.
 
 3. Distribution Networks
 There are possibly only a few places where potential users and designers of POF can go to find all the POF components required for a complete system or just a simple link.
 
 4. POF applications centers
 A major issue is how can POF be used for existing and new links. For example, the POF Applications Center has shown that POF can be used for HDMI links and parallel optics links up to 100G. More development centers are needed similar to this around the world.