VPIphotonics, LIGENTEC, and VLC Photonics streamline the design process for SiN Photonic Integrated Circuits

Designers that use LIGENTEC AN technology will now benefit from a workflow that starts from a graphical photonic integrated circuit design and system simulation environment, which seamlessly couples to layout design tools for scripted layout design and DRC capabilities. The new workflow is based on LIGENTEC and VLC Photonics verified reference designs with the simulation software by VPIphotonics using verified measurements of fabricated chips.

This  workflow  is  enabled  by  the  new   VPItoolkit  PDK LIGENTEC – a pluggable toolkit extension to VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits by adding the support of the 800 nm Silicon Nitride process “AN800” offered by LIGENTEC for dedicated shuttle runs and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) runs.

With the mode fully confined in the waveguide the thick Silicon Nitride waveguides supported by the AN800 process with 800 nm LPCVD silicon nitride offer very tight bending radius (< 0.005 dB for 10 turns), very low coupling losses (< 1.5 dB/facet), very low propagation losses (< 0.1 dB/cm) and very high power handling (up to 10 W tested).

VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits is a professional simulation and design environment for large-scale photonic integrated circuits that offers a large mix of general-purpose photonic, electrical and optoelectronic device models, together with the advanced circuit optimization and yield analysis capabilities. The library extension VPItoolkit PDK LIGENTEC adds foundry- certified simulation compact models for the standard building blocks supported by the AN800 process and enables a layout-aware schematic-driven PIC design workflow, including chip layout optimization according to its required optical functionality. Importantly, it allows designers to construct their own hierarchical and custom building blocks,  effectively  expanding  the foundry PDK to fit individual  needs.  The layout for the designed photonic integrated circuits can be automatically exported to either IPKISS by Luceda

Photonics or OptoDesigner by Synopsys for DRC verification and GDS mask generation.

The mature library of photonic building blocks, available at the LIGENTEC Process Design Kit (PDK), has been developed by LIGENTEC and VLC Photonics over several iterations. The capability of embedding these blocks into the VPIphotonics software framework enables the simulation and modeling of complex photonic integrated circuits with a high degree of reliability.

Please visit LIGENTEC at OFC 2020 booth # 3848; VPIPhontonics at #4507 and VLC Photonics at #4526.