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August 1, 2007...David Huff is VP of marketing and business development for the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA), the Washington DC USA-based, not-for-profit association, the mission of which is to serve as the nexus for vision, transformation, and growth of the opto industry... much of which is based on compound semi expertise (given silicon isn't very good at producing and maintaining light). David spoke at our CS Vision '07 executive business forum in Austin in June, reporting on the state of pretty much the entire opto industry, which is no easy task. He covered the topics of communications, displays, lighting, lasers, solar cells, image and fiber sensors, and medical applications. We asked David to project ten years out, instead of the usual one to three, and to follow is a bit of a brief summary of what he came up with.

Starting with the mainstay product lines produced by the CS industry, communications, David looked forward to a decade from now, reminding us that our communicators might more accurately be described as illuminators because the content keeps growing, almost rampantly. YouTube, for example, now boasts that more than 100M videos viewed per day off their site, and that more than 65000 videos are uploaded every 24 hours. And the mobility just keeps on increasing. David reminded those of us who attended Vision '07 that this tremendous increase in online entertainment traffic is a product of evolving human behavior (especially by those who can afford the newest toys and have the leisure to watch movies) and that individual and group sharing of pictures and videos from phones and digital cameras is now considered commonplace. The stats David pointed to are from ABI's forecast for the growth of mobile phone video subscriptions, predicting 514M subscribers to mobile TV services by 2011, which is up from 6.4M in 2005. In USA alone, 4M subscribers are expected as the total in 2007, up from 1.5M in 2006.

So how will we live our lives in 2016? We'll be able to video, speak, communicate, and interface, in any place at any time. We'll have more virtual work spaces, (like you're seeing previewed over SalesForce.com with Google). We'll be able to enjoy a virtual living space, which David referred to as a second life on steroids. I think of TIR Systems (now part of Philips) when it boasted of its Lexel technology's ability to deliver a Maui sunset into the living room of somewhere far, far away from Maui (like Central Texas in the deep of summer). Add surf and sound, and sit back and relax in your favorite Lazy Boy lounger. (That's soooo USA but then again, didn't I see that as the ending of the classic 1973 thriller, Soylent Green?) But David Huff is the eternal optimist about opto. He sees the ability to literally project displays with audio and video 10 years from now, and with 3-D back in the picture. Also, the ability to monitor and watch family, work and friends (but then... who else can monitor that too?) The technologies involved combine wireless with wire-line smoothly, and transactions, roaming, and networking are seamless. He pointed to Microsoft's "coffee table computer" as the example, and pointed out that, in fact, security, commerce, and identity problems would be well handled, and he reminded us that you have to know when to have down time, which perhaps involves more frequent use of the "off" button. And he posed the key question our industry must continually address: "How do we grow the network to handle this increased bandwidth demand, at a price point appropriate for the application?"

David addressed the topic so near and dear to our entrepreneurial hearts; who's playing banker, and what are they banking on? He showed a reassuring venture capital investment slide that indicated the industry is experiencing a slow climb back to pre bubble (2000) investment levels. Where is it going? In '06 it looked to be an even spread between: 1) displays and solid state lighting (SSL), 2) solar and photovoltaic (PV), 3) optics and bio photonics, and 4) optical networking. Beyond '06 and looking ten years out, OIDA predicts that optical networking will attract the majority of the VC money, with solar/PV coming in second, and displays/SSL and optics/bio photonics taking a diminished share. That stands to reason. The latter two should be considered much more mature sectors by then, with multijunction solar cells and new devices to better able advanced optical networking just catching on.

Growth drivers in the solar market appear especially interesting. In 2005, the PV market exceeded forecasts and grew significantly to above 1200MW, driven primarily by growth in subsidized markets. David predicts a growing adoption of subsidies globally, and pointed to California's solar initiative as a good example. (But then... California, a highly progressive USA state, has always taken the initiative in energy saving technologies. The trick is getting the initiatives to stick. Historically, every time the price of crude oil goes up, interest in solar spikes. But if the solar industry actually starts being taken seriously, all the oil industry has to do is lower the price of crude. The trick there is to get people to stick with solar through thick and thin!) David definitely saw that the trend toward switching from silicon to the much higher efficiency and smaller footprint CS multijunction solar cells as a trend that could definitely accelerate market growth. David presented some excellent facts, figures and projects for the solar market, but hey... you'd have had attended Vision '07 to get them. Don't worry, we'll be having OIDA back for Vision '08 in late January or early February for an update... plus our good friend and PV market forecaster, Paula Mints of Navigant Consulting. There will be a definite emphasis on CS solar technology at Vision '08. And head's... I'll be reviewing the Vision '07 presentation made my Nancy Harsoch of SolFocus in an upcoming installment of the McD Report.

David Huff also covered the LED marketplace and solid state lighting in particular, but we'll leave coverage of that portion of his talk for our sister online publications, LIGHTimes and SSL Design. He also reviewed the laser diode markets, predicting that the laser diodes sector of the CS industry should reach $4B by 2010, with telecom growing steadily to $1.5 by 2010. I found his assessments of LDs for television type applications especially interesting. It turns out that lasers are the only light source that produce saturated primary colors that reach over 90% of what your eye can see. [Lamp-based 40 – 45%; LEDs 55 – 60%; LCD and Plasma TVs 40 – 45%]. LDs offer the industry more color stability and consistency and have the potential to achieve xvYCC (the new color standard) and that an expanded gamut will provide “true color” for the first time. So maybe I'll wait a little longer for that big flat screen TV after all. He underscored that, for customers to notice your TV, it must be: bright, thin, colorful, have a wide viewing angle, and be true high definition (1080). In the short term, he sees a trend in lasers that defends their position against plasma, that UHP & LEDs do not compete, and in the long term, that there's a definite position and much promise for laser TVs in HDTV.

Overall, David Huff and OIDA feel that the optoelectronics market is now considered by all as vibrant, and it being driven by consumer/entertainment and that OE penetration in noticeable in many new markets, being driven by displays. But that the USA lags in key consumer segments in OE. Consequently, one of the areas where OIDA is broadening its reach is into a greater focus on building the OE market up, again, in the USA. If you want to reach David Huff directly, simply email him at huff@oida.org. And for the latest on OIDA in general, visit them virtually at www.OIDA.org.

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