SiPhotonIC Technologies is a rapid nano-fabrication foundry specializing in custom silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
Fragmentation and Data Maintenance
- Tool Fragmentation: Different customers prefer using different software tools: Luceda Photonics IPKISS, Synopsys OptoCompiler, KLayout, GDSFactory, Nazca, etc;
- High Development Costs: Building and managing separate, custom PDKs for multiple distinct software suites manually would become extremely inefficient;
- The Maintenance Trap: As manufacturing processes evolve, updating data, design rules, and hardware simulation models across multiple independent software kits introduces massive data inconsistencies.
SiPhotonIC Technologies wanted to solve these problems and make their technology accessible across multiple design environments.
Epiphany’s xPDK framework
SiPhotonIC partnered with photonic design house Epiphany Design to engineer a standardized, automated foundry enablement solution, the xPDK framework. Epiphany supported SiPhotonIC with the creation of:
- Created a Single Source of Truth: In photonic chip design, the software toolchain is highly fragmented. Usually, a foundry has to build and manually update a separate PDK for every single design software. Epiphany structured a centralized, master database that houses all of SiPhotonIC’s physical foundry metrics, component libraries, component geometries, and design rules;
- Automated Software Translation: Epiphany developed automated scripts and compilers that dynamically translate this single master database into software-specific PDK configurations.
- Built a Scalable Maintenance Flow: Instead of updating multiple toolsets by hand, Epiphany built a verification pipeline. Now, when SiPhotonIC adjusts a fabrication layer or rule, the change is applied once and a
The Impact: Scalable Foundry Enablement
The completed xPDK project transformed how SiPhotonIC interacts with the global market:
- Seamless Customer Onboarding: Designers can design in their preferred environment while accessing SiPhotonIC’s fabrication platform with ease.
- No Data Inconsistencies: Centralized validation eliminated mismatch bugs between different software PDK implementations.
- Accelerated Tape-Outs: Shorter design-validation loops mean faster prototyping and rapid delivery for Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) runs.
