September 24, 2018

Fraunhofer HHI and Lumerical Inc. Build an Ecosystem for Photonic Integrated Circuits

September 24, 2018

Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI and Lumerical Inc. , a leading developer of photonic simulation tools, announce the availability of the Compact Model Library (CML) for Fraunhofer HHI’s InP Integration Platform, further building the rapidly expanding ecosystem for photonic integrated circuits.

Fraunhofer HHI’s InP Integration Platform provides a toolbox for TxRx photonic integration with quick MPW turnaround time with tape-outs every three months, and customer specific private runs in Fraunhofer HHI’s ISO certified, qualified production facility. The facility further offers e-beam services beam and epitaxial growth. InP offers amplification and laser sources which are monolithically integrated within the chip. InP also offers efficient modulators and detectors as well as a broad range of passive waveguide structures and devices. The platform is ideal for 100+ Gb/s data transmission and detection and sensor applications from industrial combustion sensing to satellite-to-satellite optical communication such as interrogators for optical sensors, optical filters with integrated gain, and advanced optical sources.

The new Fraunhofer HHI CML, based on Lumerical INTERCONNECT, enables photonic designers to create, test, and optimize their product designs on the circuit level, without requiring a deep knowledge of the materials, the processing, and the device physics of various building blocks. These predictive capabilities enable the scientific and engineering community to validate designs prior to manufacturing, create new product concepts, and explore long-term innovative photonics research. Components included in the HHI CML are waveguides, multimode interference couplers (MMIs), spot size converters, butt-joint couplers, polarization beam splitters and rotators, current-injection phase modulators, tunable gratings, DBR & DFB lasers, EAMs, MZIs, photodetectors, and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs).

“During my entire career, designing optoelectronic devices relied on homegrown simulation models. This is still common practice in the photonic industry. Using CML libraries as provided now by Lumerical for the HHI InP foundry platform can enhance both the accessibility and design quality of novel photonic devices for multiple applications,“ said Andreas Umbach, CEO of AUCCEPT Consulting.

Photonics, the science of light and its interaction with matter, unlocks many possibilities for the world’s leading technology companies across diverse fields including biotechnology, data communications, information storage, solar energy, environmental sensing, and consumer electronics. “This new CLML will help us service our customers and fellow researchers better by providing them with components accurately modeled, so that they can focus on their system rather than building their components “, said Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ronald Freund, Head of Photonic Networks and Systems Department at Fraunhofer HHI.

James Pond, CTO of Lumerical said “Fraunhofer HHI has long been a leader for Germany and globally in photonic research. The new CML, combined with Lumerical’s photonic simulation tools will speed the application of their advanced research to commercial applications.”

The InP CML is available October 1st from Fraunhofer HHI. Corresponding CML Reader licenses are available immediately from Lumerical. MPW reservations are accessible at the Joint European Platform for Photonic Integration of Components and Circuits (JEPPIX) at http://www.jeppix.eu/hhi-mpw.

The new CML featuring Fraunhofer HHI’s InP Integration Platform and Lumerical’s INTERCONNECT will be demonstrated at the 44th European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) in Rome, September 24-26 at booth 308.