OpenLight and DoplayDo partner on PIC design platform
The companies say they will enable engineers to use GDSFactory to create designs using OpenLight’s PDK to support a photonic fabrication process from Tower Semiconductor, lowering the barriers to PIC design and accelerating PIC products’ time to market
OpenLight, a custom photonic ASIC chip design and manufacturing company, has announced a strategic partnership with DoplayDo, the creators of the open-source tool GDSFactory, to establish support for the PH18DA process in GDSFactory+, a cutting-edge platform designed for seamless, end-to-end chip design. By integrating UI tools, advanced verification capabilities and professional support, GDSFactory+ aims to build on GDSFactory's success in lowering the barriers to PIC design, further simplifying access to and adoption of OpenLight's PH18DA technology.
Over the years, silicon photonics has emerged as a cornerstone technology in areas that require ultrahigh-bandwidth, energy-efficient solutions that can be manufactured at industrial scale. The partnership between OpenLight and DoplayDo will focus on enabling broader adoption of heterogeneously integrated indium phosphide-based silicon photonics chips, with applications spanning data communications, AI, sensing, LiDAR technologies, quantum computing, and consumer applications.
The collaboration aims to enable engineers to use GDSFactory to create designs using OpenLight's photonic PDK to support the fabrication of PICs using Tower Semiconductor's PH18DA fabrication process. OpenLight says its PDK will be one of the first fully supported PDKs on DoplayDo's new platform, GDSFactory+.
Under the partnership, companies will be able to develop their designs with a suite of streamlined end-to-end design workflows, including Design Rule Check (DRC), Layout vs. Schematic (LVS) and simulations — all critical processes to ensure PIC designs are manufacturable, functional and optimised for performance before fabrication.
“Yole Group forecasted that the silicon photonics market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45 percent from 2023 to at least $863 million by 2029,” said Adam Carter, CEO of OpenLight. “As AI models increase in size and complexity, the need for faster data processing and transfer becomes essential. Our collaboration with DoplayDo/GDS Factory represents a major milestone in addressing the unique challenges of photonic circuit design. By providing a comprehensive platform for the design, prototyping and manufacturing of PICs, we're expanding the silicon photonics ecosystem by streamlining and reducing design process time, improving accuracy and ensuring devices meet performance and manufacturability requirements that are transformative.”
DoplayDo CEO Troy Tamas said: “We are thrilled to collaborate with OpenLight and support the growing need for advanced silicon photonics with integrated light sources. OpenLight's unique technology platform provides a strong foundation for the next generation of high-performance, energy-efficient devices. Our design kit and advanced tooling will enable companies to more easily get started building with it, with the confidence of first-pass success. The GDSFactory team, together with OpenLight, is enabling companies to design with confidence and accelerate their time to market in this rapidly evolving field.”