Software design tool developer VPIphotonics and Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN) have collaborated to provide a way for users of Infinera’s InP open foundry services to leverage VPIphotonics technology to enable a design workflow that starts from a graphical photonic integrated circuit design and system simulation environment. VPItoolkit PDK Infinera is a pluggable toolkit extension to VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits that supports the process design kit (PDK) building blocks for Infinera’s open foundry process.
The companies assert that use of VPItoolkit PDK Infinera enables designers to quickly prototype application-specific photonic integrated circuits (PICs) with prerequisite functionality without needing to go deep into the details of device layout and fabrication process. Once the designer finishes his or her work, the resulting schematic can be exported to a netlist and passed to Infinera’s InP foundry for physical layout implementation, verification, and fabrication. The new tool can leverage the standard modules and instrumentation from the VPIphotonics Design Suite, particularly VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits (for circuit level design and analysis) and VPItransmissionMaker Optical Systems (system-level evaluation). The ecosystem transparently supports hierarchical circuit designs and advanced parameter scripting, sweep and optimization of parameters, sensitivity and yield analysis, as well as systems benchmarking and characterization.
VPIphotonics and Infinera says the ability to embed these building blocks into the VPIphotonics software framework enables the simulation and modeling of complex photonic integrated circuits with a high degree of reliability.
The Infinera Optical Innovation Center
The open foundry services fall under the purview of the Infinera Optical Innovation Center, which Infinera Senior Vice President of Marketing Rob Shore describes as the company’s version of the old AT&T Bell Labs. The center houses Infinera’s expertise and activities in such fields as PIC design, DSP design, and packaging development, as well as foundry services. The center also will be the hub of development for at least some of Infinera’s upcoming optical modules (see “Infinera offers Infinite Network pluggable coherent module strategy details”) as well as partner collaboration as Infinera’s XR Optics initiative further develops (see “Infinera unveils XR optics single-source coherent point-to-multipoint transmission technology”).
Shore says that Infinera has made its InP foundry capabilities available to customers who want to collaborate on the design of custom analog components. He said the company is supplying the services to customers “in the handful range.” Shore was reluctant to discuss the customers in detail, although the PDK announcement mentions that the foundry services, delivered from a facility in California, were developed in collaboration with AIM Photonics and the U.S. Department of Defense. The Infinera Optical Innovation Center will be highlighted in upcoming press releases leading up to OFC next month, Shore revealed, so additional details may be forthcoming.
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