With the goal of ultimately reaching ultra-high component densities to further minimize per-unit production costs, researchers continue to investigate nanophotonic elements and photonic integrated circuits to deliver key functions required for on-chip communication systems. So-called silicon photonics, one technological vision for how such high efficiency and cost effective components can be realized and integrated into sophisticated components and sub-systems, is the focus of many industrial, state and academic research laboratories around the world.

CMOS-compatible silicon photonic integrated circuits address the optical interconnect design challenge

Silicon photonics refers to the field of study that explores the interaction of light within integrated optical or planar lightwave components realized in silicon and compatible with standard CMOS semiconductor manufacturing techniques. Owing to the high refractive index of silicon, silicon photonics offers a promising approach to realizing ultracompact, highly functional photonic components. Silicon photonics is being actively investigated for applications light optical interconnects for next-generation data communications, and realizing low-cost and low-power planar lightwave circuits for telecommunication components.

Applicable Products to Optical Interconnect Design

Whether the desired component is a photonic crystal-based input coupler, photonic nanowire for compact signal routing, or silicon-based light source, modulator, multiplexer or photodiode, Lumerical's high-performance optoelectronic and circuit design tools can correctly account for the physical effects taking place within such devices.

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Photonic Integrated Circuit Simulation

Learn how to simulate and optimize your photonic integrated circuits with Lumerical’s INTERCONNECT.

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Photonic Device Simulation

Learn how to design photonic integrated circuit components using Lumerical's TCAD products.

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• Detailed characteristics (including amplitude, phase, group delay and dispersion) of complex photonic circuits with many cascaded photonic components
• Signal integrity analysis in both the time and frequency domains
• Statistical analysis and yield estimation of the technological process for parameterized circuit descriptions
• Aggregation of individual optical functions into more complex arrangements

Mach-Zehnder interferometer-based optical filter circuit characterization in INTERCONNECT (click to zoom)

• Waveguide structure design including, for example, effective index, dispersion, group index, and propagation loss for straight and bent waveguides
• Waveguide propagation through passive routing elements, e.g., waveguide bends
• Mach Zehnder modulator
• Coupling efficiency between different waveguide sections using the built-in overlap calculator
• Resonator analysis, e.g. ring resonator
• Plasmonic waveguides and components
• Waveguide components including evanescent waveguide couplers, waveguide grating-based filters and waveguide tapers