Integrated silicon photonic circuit simulation

Abstract

Integrated silicon photonics is an exciting emerging technology, utilizing the high bandwidth and high timing resolution that optics provides in many applications. To maximize the benefits of these optical-electrical systems, tight integration of the electronic and photonic components are necessary. In light of this need, we've developed a Cadence toolkit library written in VerilogA that simulates both the amplitude and phase of optical signals, as well as optical-electrical interactions. The runtime is greatly improved by simulating the optical signal relative to a reference frequency, which is chosen to be close to the frequency range of interest. We have identified a set of fundamental photonic components, and described each at the physical level, such that the characteristics of a composite device will be created organically. We show that the simulated results match analytic solutions for simple devices like resonant ring filters and more complicated devices like single sideband modulators. Adding to this toolkit library, we then discuss devices that are required for handling more special cases, such as chromatic dispersion in the waveguide, and non-ideal optoelectronic devices. Finally, we demonstrate simulations of complicated systems such as WDM links and Pound-Drever-Hall loops. This will allow designers to unify our photonic device designing and modeling environment with circuit and system level design, giving us greater insight on the trade-offs that take place between the two realms.