Abstract
Fiber lasers revenues are set to grow to $256 million by 2008 and are likely to have a
significant impact on the penetration of high power lasers into the manufacturing environment on the
basis of their superior price / performance (beam quality, efficiency and footprint). This is likely
to accelerate the adoption of laser processing in volume manufacturing where lasers are only just
starting to offer fully integrated solutions (robotic integration and fiber delivery) that will in
turn enable new designs and manufacturing techniques.
The immediate opportunity for fiber lasers is as a replacement for Nd:YAG and to a lesser extent
CO2 lasers at lower power levels(<100W), for predominately marking, in addition to some limited
number of high power units (~1kW) for welding and cutting. However, over the next 2-5 years the
technical superiority of fiber lasers will permit them to carve out an expanding percentage of the
Nd:YAG and CO2 markets accounting for up to 20% of the welding and cutting markets, by value, by
2008. Some of the areas that can be identified as potential growth areas include:
- Automotive
- Non-specialist 3-D milling market currently dominated by CNC machines
- Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) market
- Pipe fabrication
- Large metallic structures (doors, tanks)
The report splits the addressable market for fiber lasers into seven major categories:
Cutting -- both metal and non-metal cutting will benefit from the introduction of fiber
lasers where superior beam quality will bring reduced cutting thresholds, smaller feature size and
the potential to address the high end hard tooling market.
Welding -- the higher efficiency of fiber lasers (~30%) compared to other laser systems
makes it a very attractive option when dealing with large deployments. This is particularly true for
the automotive industry where lasers are being used for body part and component welding, offering a
potential revenue upside for fiber lasers of $400-$800 million/yr from 2006 onwards.
Marking - fiber lasers offer higher efficiencies, smaller spot sizes and smaller
footprints than existing YAG and CO2 laser systems.
Aerospace and Military -- will provide R&D funding for basic technology development
for weapons based systems.
Drilling -- limited opportunity in some of the specialist markets.
Printing -- will struggle against dominant diode systems.
Other -- multiple small applications (soldering, paper drilling, stereolithography,
cladding, via hole drilling) will experience organic growth as fiber lasers enter mainstream
manufacturing.
View Cart
