Enables engineers to simulate photonic integrated circuits and validate optical link performance in a single environment

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:KEYS) announced support for GlobalFoundries' (GF) silicon photonics process technology in its Advanced Design System (ADS) Photonic Designer, expanding its foundry ecosystem for photonic integrated circuit (PIC) development. Designers can move from PIC design to full electro-optical-electrical (EOE) system simulation within a single environment, validating how photonic circuits perform at the optical link level before tapeout.

As silicon photonics moves into volume production across data centers, AI infrastructure, and optical communications, designing a photonic integrated circuit is only part of the challenge. Engineers need to confirm its performance within an EOE system. Traditional workflows separate these steps, forcing teams to move between PIC design tools and system simulation platforms. This introduces risk and delays validation until late in the development cycle.

Keysight's PDK for ADS Photonic Designer addresses this by connecting PIC design with system level EOE simulation. Engineers can now design photonic circuits on GF's platform, then validate full optical link behavior, including eye diagram analysis and signal integrity metrics such as transmission dispersion eye closure quaternary (TDECQ), without switching tools. Built on physics based models aligned to GF's silicon photonics process, the PDK ensures that PIC simulations correlate to fabricated silicon, while validation at the system level ensures the desired channel link performance is achieved.

These PIC and system performance are critical for high-speed optical interconnect architecture development, and further down the design process where photonic and electronic performance must be verified together. Engineers designing optical transceivers and co-packaged optics can use Keysight FlexDCA oscilloscope software during design to ensure the best possible simulation to measurements correlation and the best possible predictive results.

Key benefits include:

Faster time to first design: Foundry aligned, physics-based models for GF's silicon photonics process are ready for immediate use, so teams can start working without building or calibrating component libraries from scratch.
Achieve compliance before tapeout: By simulating with Keysight instrument software, FlexDCA based measurements and TDECQ analysis, engineers reduce design to test correlation variables ensuring the best possible predictive results.
Earlier system level insight: By shifting left engineers can evaluate how PIC performance affects the optical link early during architecture development, which can reduce design iterations and time to market.

Vikas Gupta, Senior Fellow, Silicon Photonics Product Line at GlobalFoundries, said: "As silicon photonics moves into broader deployment for AI infrastructure and high-speed optical communications, designers need workflows that connect device innovation with system-level performance from the start. By enabling our silicon photonics platform in Keysight's ADS Photonic Designer, we're helping customers accelerate development, reduce design risk and scale their optical interconnect solutions more effectively."

Niels Faché, Senior Vice President, Keysight's Design Engineering Software, said: "The silicon photonics industry has moved past the point where circuit design and system validation can live in separate workflows. Engineers building for AI and data center infrastructure need to see system-level link performance from day one, not after fabrication."

The GlobalFoundries CLO PDK for ADS Photonic Designer is available now.

Resources

Web Page: ADS Photonic Designer

About Keysight Technologies

At Keysight (NYSE:KEYS), we inspire and empower innovators to bring world-changing technologies to life. As an S&P 500 company, we're delivering market-leading design, emulation, and test solutions to help engineers develop and deploy faster, with less risk, throughout the entire product life cycle. We're a global innovation partner enabling customers in communications, industrial automation, aerospace and defense, automotive, semiconductor, and general electronics markets to accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world. Learn more at Keysight Newsroom and www.keysight.com.

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Keysight Expands Photonics Design Ecosystem with GlobalFoundries PDK