Optical design software specialist VPIphotonics has issued a major upgrade to its photonic components and systems design suite. The company is giving visitors to ECOC 2012 a live preview of Version 9.0 of its software, showing off the new modeling features and design advances.
Version 9.0 of the design suite, VPItransmissionMaker and VPIcomponentMaker, comes with a new Photonic Design Environment (PDE). The PDE is an improved user interface that enhances usability, offering personalized layout and display, as well as many other advances that simplify the design process, says VPIphotonics.
Meanwhile, VPItransmissionMaker Optical Systems includes the brand new Constellation Analysis Tool (CAT), which simplifies the design and optimization of transmission systems with data rates beyond 100 Gbps. The tool models adaptive modulation formats using arbitrary IQ constellations. While optimizing symbol positions and decision thresholds, the user can investigate the performance of each symbol individually and compare it to the performance of the overall data stream. Enhanced OFDM modeling now accounts for arbitrary power loading, different encoding and performance estimation of individual subcarriers, and inclusion of customizable digital signal processing (DSP) functions. Multiple general purpose units can be used simultaneously to reduce simulation time of transmission fiber in long-haul and high-capacity systems. And finally, the speed of Monte-Carlo based bit-error rate (BER) calculations for mQAM/mPSK-type modulated signals has been increased, and the modeling support for applications such as parametric amplification, optical interconnects, and optical access technologies improved.
In VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits, users benefit from new bidirectional models representing various passive and polarization-sensitive functions in photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Additionally, users can build their own PIC sub-elements with a customizable number of ports and transfer characteristics using the new PIC co-simulation environment. The drastically reduced demand on memory and simulation time of the SMATRX domain allows large-scale PICs with several hundreds of sub-elements to be easily designed, geometrical tolerances analyzed, and the performance optimized. Furthermore, the modeling of gain gratings and interface reflections in multi-section active devices has been enhanced. Nonlinearities due to Kerr and two-photon absorption can be taken into account now. Higher order voltage-dependent characteristics of EAM sections are also considered.
Finally, the scope of VPIcomponentMaker Optical Amplifiers has been enhanced to support the analysis of dynamic EDFA characteristics and design of corresponding optical or electronic control circuits.
Version 9.0 of the VPIphotonics modeling suite will be available for public release in October 2012.
For more information on design software and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.