What's New in Photonic Solutions

Photonic Solutions 2023.03 Software Releases

We are pleased to announce the availability of version 2023.03 of OptoCompiler, OptSim, the RSoft Photonic Device Tools, and OptoDesigner.

Synopsys OptoCompiler 2023.03 Release Highlights:

• Python Enablement of OptoDesigner Primitives
• Arbitrary Port Names in OptoDesigner Engine
• Enhanced multi-channel support in E-O co-simulation
• Enhanced support for MATLAB co-simulation in OptoCompiler-based simulations
• New support for parameter out-of-range warnings in Black-Box SOA model
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

For details about these and many other enhancements in this release, log into SolvNetPlus and then see the Synopsys OptoCompiler Release Notes.

Synopsys OptSim Elite 2023.03 Release Highlights:

• Enhanced multi-channel support in E-O co-simulation
• Enhanced support for MATLAB co-simulation in OptoCompiler-based simulations
• New support for parameter out-of-range warnings in Black-Box SOA model
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

For details about these and many other enhancements in this release, log into SolvNetPlus and then see the Synopsys OptSim Release Notes.

Synopsys OptSim Base 2023.03 Release Highlights:

• New support for parameter out-of-range warnings in Black-Box SOA model
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

For details about these and many other enhancements in this release, log into SolvNetPlus and then see the Synopsys OptSim Release Notes.

RSoft Photonic Device Tools 2023.03 Release Highlights:

• MetaOptic Designer improvements, including the ability to load refractive lenses from CODE V so that hybrid optical systems combining metalenses and refractive lenses can be easily designed and optimized.
• Improved performance for the RSoft Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function (BSDF) user-defined optical properties (UDOP) when using a single thread within LightTools. The processing speed is improved by up to 2x.
• Updated TCAD Interface features, including support for the new TDR format used by Sentaurus 2022.12 for optical simulations and a new RSoft TCAD Wizard to assist with design file and simulation script creation.
• Python 3 support for layout and data manipulation APIs.

For details about these and many other enhancements in this release, log into SolvNetPlus and then see the RSoft Photonic Device Tools Release Notes.

Synopsys OptoDesigner 2023.03 Release Highlights:

• Added `ml::BendEulerFullEffective`, which has the same shape as the `ml::BendEulerFull`, but changes its internal radius to make the ports be identical to those obtained using a standard circular bend.
• The origin port of a layout (which is the location that will be at [0,0] when instantiating it from OptoCompiler) can now be set to be anything. If nothing is supplied, the old behavior applies ('in0' if it exists, then 'out0' if it exists, then 'dc0' if it exists, then 'rf0' if it exists, and finally the reference input port).
• Both the OptoDesigner Engine (OptoCompiler integration of OptoDesigner scripts) and the Bidirectional Interface (co-design with OptSim) now support arbitrary port names. Previously, only 'standard' names like 'in0', 'out0', 'dc0', etc., were supported. Now, any name may be used. The OptoDesigner autorouter also supports any port names.

For details about these and many other enhancements in this release, log into SolvNetPlus and then see the Synopsys PIC Design Suite Release Notes.

Synopsys OptoDesigner 2022.06 Release Highlights

Fixes and enhancements:

• mask::netlist() now has an extra parameter to display only certain elements
• New function pda::getNetlistBBs returns a data structure with all layout instances in a pda netlist
• Commenting out #endif in scripts now works as expected
• Classes like vector_int are no longer part of the standard @layout, but must be included through #include @stdlib
• pdk packing functionality
• gds file import correctly interprets mirrored instantiations again
• Trenching operations now support layer (0,0)
• No longer removes nonstandardly-named 'PDAConfig.ini' when lib.defs file is present
• pda::newBB now errors out if the requested name is an empty string
• Invalid characters in loaded scripts now properly detected and replaced by spaces
• Invalid character encoding in loaded scripts detected
• Help menu xml can also be loaded without an internet connection
• pxBusGuide with single waveguide now uses specified radius
• Fixed bug in Concat function that could invert the sign of the first entry
• BendEulerFull with negative angle now has correct output port location
• ml::CircleSegment no longer triggers erroneous mcsCurveCheck errors
• Fixed crash in export for very rare cases

Synopsys OptSim 2022.06 Release Highlights

New Support for Multimode Simulations for PICs

Most Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) are designed with fundamental modes. However, applications for multimode silicon photonics are on the rise. These applications include mode-division multiplexing, multimode coupling, on-chip nonlinear photonics, on-chip polarization handling devices and multimode gratings, and quantum photonics. To be able to model multimode photonic applications, the photonic simulators need to evolve from supporting few modes (TE, TM and crosstalk) to supporting multimode simulation, analyses and visualization.

1. Synopsys OptSim 2022.06 adds new model templates and modeling capabilities as enumerated below to facilitate multimode PIC simulations:
   • Additional model templates for:
     • Mode Adder
     • Mode Splitter 
     • Mode Combiner
     • Polarized Mode Splitter
     • Polarized Mode Combiner
2. New multimode support in the Waveguide model template
3. New multimode support in the Multiport Optical Device Bidirectional model template

Added Support for Monte Carlo Analyses

Variations in manufacturing processes and component parameters require rigorous Monte Carlo analyses in order to get realistic estimates of the yield and commercial viability of the design. The Synopsys OptoCompiler platform provides powerful capabilities for Monte Carlo and corner analyses. Since traditional CMOS designers are a key user group of electronic-photonic design automation (EPDA), it is necessary to augment the design experience by providing EDA-like Monte Carlo features to the design flow. Synopsys OptSim v2022.06 adds a new support for statistical expressions during Monte Carlo simulation (e.g., UNIF, AUNIF, GAUSS, AGAUSS, LIMIT) in Synopsys OptoCompiler.

Enhancements to Electronic-Photonic Co-Simulation

Synopsys OptoCompiler and the Synopsys PrimeWave design environment provide designers with seamless schematic entry and simulation setup for both electronics and photonics on the same chip or combination of chips. Designers choose a desired Synopsys PrimeSim electrical simulator (e.g., Synopsys PrimeSim Spice or PrimeSim HSPICE) for co-simulation with Synopsys OptSim. Synopsys OptoCompiler v2022.06 extends co-simulation support to schematics with multi-level, mixed-domain hierarchies including electronic and photonic devices.

RSoft Photonic Device Tools 2022.06 Highlights

Photonic Solutions 2021.09-2 Software Releases

We are pleased to announce the availability of version 2021.09-2 of the RSoft Photonic Device Tools, Synopsys OptSim and our Photonic IC Solutions. New features and improvements include:

Synopsys OptoCompiler 2021.09-2 Release Highlights:

• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
  
  

Synopsys OptSim 2021.09-2 Release Highlights:

• Enhancements to E-O co-simulation
  • The framework of E-O cosimulation was enhanced to support photonic models of an iPDK from a major foundry that added bidirectional signal flow to their iPDK
• New GaussianVsWavelength filter type in Optical Filter model
  • The Optical Filter model of Synopsys OptSim represented a variety of analytic and user-defined optical filters. A new GaussianVsWavelength filter type was added to the model. It uses a Gaussian filter response as a function of wavelength to filter the optical signal amplitude.  The user specifies the 3dB bandwidth and the order of the filter. 
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements
   

Synopsys Photonic Device Compiler 2021.09-2 Release Highlights:

• Improvements to the Custom PDK Utility Alchemy Design Flow
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements

Photonic Solutions 2021.09 Release

We are pleased to announce the availability of version 2021.09 of the RSoft Photonic Device Tools, Synopsys OptSim and our Photonic IC Solutions. New features and improvements include:

RSoft Photonic Device Tools:

• New far-field calculation in inhomogeneous regions, enabling faster and more accurate calculations for total-scattered field calculations and LED extraction and radiation pattern calculations
• Native support for LSF Batch Schedulers for FullWAVE FDTD and MOST clustered simulations that simplifies the use of high-performance computing systems
• The RSoft Advanced BSDF UDOP now includes optical phase, enabling use with coherent ray tracing and compensating for the optical path length (OPL) in the Synopsys  LightTools ray tracing simulator
• Increased number of concurrent processes per license seat to 32, enabling customers to simulate larger problems and more fully utilize computers with many CPU cores. This change applies to FullWAVE FDTD, BeamPROP BPM, ModePROP EME, DiffractMOD RCWA, and FemSIM FEM. Note that this change was first included in v2021.03-3
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements