Predictive capabilities to accelerate customers’ time-to-market and drive SiPh adoption
Singapore (6 August 2019)
CompoundTek, a global foundry services leader in emerging silicon photonic solutions (SiPh), recently partnered with leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) vendor Mentor, a Siemens business, and leading photonic simulation software provider Lumerical to deliver CompoundTek’s SiPh Process Design Kit (PDK) across its global commercial customer base.
Available immediately, the PDK’s predictive capabilities enable photonics designers to validate designs prior to manufacturing thus enabling reduction of the time from product design to market launches.
“Together with our design partners, this photonics design automation solution by Lumerical and Mentor, combined with CompoundTek’s open SiPh manufacturing process platform, will accelerate SiPh adoption for applications ranging from datacom transceivers, bio-sensing, smart sensors, LiDAR, quantum computing and artificial intelligence,” said KS Ang, Chief Operating Officer, CompoundTek.
The PDK includes active and passive devices such as optical waveguide devices, fiber-to-waveguide couplers, high-speed waveguide Ge photo-detectors and high-speed modulators. SiPh designers can leverage these pre-developed blocks to design and verify their photonics products more quickly and efficiently before fabricating physical prototypes.
A complete design flow enabled by the PDK includes photonic simulation, schematic capture, custom layout, layout automation, and physical verification. Tools enabled include Lumerical INTERCONNECT, as well as Mentor’s L-Edit Photonics, LightSuite Photonic Compiler, and industry-leading Calibre™ platform physical verification tools.
“The development of the ecosystem is imperative to the ongoing productization of photonics. We are excited to be working with two of the pioneers, Mentor and CompoundTek, a leading foundry service provider, as we build the ecosystem together. Successful flows must be built with the cooperation of EDA, Photonic Design Automation, and foundries, with unrelenting focus on the customers’ needs,” said Dr. James Pond, Chief Technology Officer, Lumerical.
Greg Lebsack, General Manager Integrated Circuit Design Solutions (ICDS) added, “Our partnership with CompoundTek and Lumerical provides our mutual customers with the ability to design complex custom photonic integrated circuits using their proprietary photonic process. The CompoundTek PDK supports both an automated design flow with LightSuite Photonic Compiler, an interactive design flow using L-Edit Photonics, and integrated full system simulation with Lumerical’s INTERCONNECT.”
CompoundTek in partnership with Mentor and Lumerical will present live demos at the 16th International conference on Group IV Photonics (GFP2019) August 28th-30th at CompoundTek’s booth #3, Mentor’s booth #9 and Lumerical’s booth #5 at the Singapore Hilton. GFP2019 delivers insights on current and future innovations in Group IV element-based photonic materials and devices, including silicon photonics.
The partners will present live demos in a shared booth (Hall #1, Booth 1A64-9) of the China International Optoelectronic Exposition (CIOE 2019) on September 4th-7th at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center. In representing the entire optoelectronics industry chain, CIOE is the world’s largest exhibition in the optoelectronics industry.
CompoundTek, based in Singapore, boasts of an operation that include strategic partnerships with a leading fabrication service provider in Malaysia and renowned global SiPh research institutes. Backed by wide-ranging expertise from process technology, product design support capabilities delivered through strategic design partners up to manufacturing, CompoundTek’s solutions are increasingly sought after by SiPh players globally from Fortune 500 entities to start-ups.