Korea Advanced Materials and ETRI Accelerate Data Center Market Expansion with ‘E-Family Company’ Support

Korea Advanced Materials (formerly PPI) announced on the 26th that it has been selected as an ‘E-Family Company’ by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) for 2024 and is receiving technical support. The E-Family Company program is an initiative by ETRI to select small and medium-sized enterprises in need of technological innovation and support their development and production. Selected companies can receive various supports for technological advancement, including technology and manpower support, technical consulting, and shared use of equipment and testing facilities.

Earlier this year, Korea Advanced Materials, with the support of internationally accredited testing from ETRI’s Honam Research Center, conducted reliability testing and development of Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG) devices, achieving progress in strengthening optical MUX/DEMUX technology required for data center transceivers.

AWG is a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) device that combines multiple wavelengths into a single channel, enabling efficient data transmission. It plays a crucial role in maximizing transceiver performance in large-scale data centers and contributes to the expansion of data center network infrastructure. Based on AWG technology, Korea Advanced Materials is expanding its presence in the data center transceiver market and is expected to grow further in the future market.

According to Yole Intelligence, a semiconductor market research firm, the revenue of the optical transceiver market for data centers in 2023 is approximately $7.735 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 20%, projected to reach about $14.179 billion by 2027. The global AWG market is also experiencing rapid growth. Industry sources estimate that the AWG market size will increase from $183.05 million in 2023 to $423.6 million in 2029, with an average annual growth rate of 14.94%.

An industry official stated, “AWG technology separates multiplexed optical signals into individual wavelengths to support high-speed data transmission,” adding, “The advancement of data center and optical communication technologies is expected to drive market expansion.”

A company representative said, “Collaboration with ETRI will be an important stepping stone to strengthen Korea Advanced Materials’ technological capabilities,” and added, “Through this, we aim to achieve continuous growth in domestic and international data center and optical communication markets.”

They continued, “Thanks to the support from ETRI’s Honam Research Center, we were able to develop highly reliable AWG products and expect differentiated results in optical communication solutions for data centers,” emphasizing, “We will continue to expand our global market presence through ongoing technological development.”