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TowerJazz has announced a new silicon photonic process (SiPho) which complements its SiGe BiCMOS processes utilized for the manufacture of optical transceiver electronics. TowerJazz is also collaborating with PhoeniX Software to provide process design kits (PDKs) for its customers who are developing optical networking and data center interconnects applications. Silicon photonics holds the potential to become a cost-effective, scalable technology for the production of photonic integrated circuits and addresses the high-performance requirements of these applications.

TowerJazz’s foundry SiPho process offering is built to enable a wide range of optical fiber interconnect Tx and Rx front-end optical ICs. The process includes several versions of single-mode silicon waveguides, high speed germanium photodetectors, p-n junction modulators and enablement for edge and grating couplers. PhoeniX Software’s award winning PIC design solution, OptoDesigner 5.1, uses a unique process known as photonic synthesis to map design intent into a design-rule clean circuit layout targeted to the TowerJazz SiPho process. Designers can use OptoDesigner’s parametric object oriented scripting environment and its integrated photonic simulators to optimize their designs to achieve an optimal layout that meets their performance and design requirements while also ensuring robust design manufacturability.

PDK-based design is key to achieving greater designer productivity and PhoeniX Software will be working with TowerJazz to make their SiGe BiCMOS PDKs available to the datacom market. The SiPho PDKs for SiPho process will be available from Q3 2017.