VPIphotonics Design Suite comprises professional application-specific simulation tools and add-on toolkits for photonic components and optical transmission systems. They provide flexible usability functions, versatile analysis capabilities, and custom design process support tailored for day-to-day engineering and leading-edge research.
Version 11.6 significantly advances simulation and design flows for many applications, including computing,
datacenter interconnects, laser satcom, and high-capacity core networks.
The latest version addresses key industry needs with significant modeling accuracy, flexibility, and
simulation speed enhancements, underscoring our commitment to delivering practical, industry-focused tools that
accelerate photonic innovation.
Photonic Design Environment (PDE) of Version 11.6 with exemplary demonstrations
Enhanced BER 4D module to support mismatched decoding using a multivariate Gaussian auxiliary channel model, enabling more realistic calculation of MI, GMI, and LLRs in coherent systems with significant nonlinearities
Enhanced BER 4D module permitting the exclusion of underrepresented symbols, improving the numerical confidence, especially for channels with strong probabilistic shaping
Extended Power Equalizer module with support for non-equidistant channels with variable bandwidths, and improved handling of edge- and low-power channels and out-of-range regions
Demo showcases the transmission and detection of a 16QAM WDM system operating in the S, C, and L bands over a distance of Nx80 km
Demo illustrating the performance of a 3-path oDAC for transmitting coherent 64-QAM signals
Updated BPS, CDC, DFE/FFE algorithms of the DSP library module, allowing real-time modifications during simulation runs or via the simulation script
Modified and improved tutorial application examples illustrating the setup of coherent QAM transmission systems, including DSP
Enhanced BER Multilevel module to support modulation formats that use reduced alphabet sizes permittable by the number of bits per symbol, such as PAM6
Demo comparing 40 Gb PAM6 and 50 Gb PAM4 for intra-datacenter interconnects in the C-band
Extended BER MLSE module to output on demand the estimated symbol sequence derived after maximum likelihood sequence estimation of a PAM-m signal
Demo implementing an 8 x 100G PAM4 optical system, using cascaded silicon MRMs for high-speed modulation and cascaded third-order MRRs for demultiplexing, including schematics for tuning and characterizing MRMs and MRRs
Demo implementing a 2 Tbps DWDM 32QAM coherent optical DCI system with OFC, TFLN-based traveling-wave MZMs and 90° hybrids, and a typical DSP chain
New module for a turbulent atmospheric channel in coherent FSO communication systems, accounting for turbulence-induced scintillation and phase distortions, pointing errors, beam divergence, and atmospheric attenuation, with optical field to SMF coupling and adaptive optics to correct for wavefront aberrations
Tutorial demo investigating the impact of turbulence-induced phase and amplitude distortions on a coherent FSO channel
Demo illustrating a coherent 16QAM transmission system over a turbulent FSO channel between a LEO satellite and an optical ground station
New module for an electrical THz wireless channel accounting for weather conditions such as rain, clouds or fog, and atmospheric gases, and the channel length and frequency dependent free space path loss
Demo showing the impact of weather conditions on a 16-QAM RF signal at 270 GHz when transmitted over a 1 km wireless link
Significantly updated general-purpose AWG and Scope interface modules for the vendor-agnostic integration of physical equipment and simulation environment
New dedicated modules interfacing with the Keysight M8199B AWG and their UXR oscilloscope series
Upgraded NgSpice module to support version 44.2 of the open-source SPICE simulator, which enables users to load compact Verilog-A models at run-time via the OSDI interface as part of full photonic system simulations
Work flow demo illustrating the compilation and simulation of a Verilog-A model of a voltage-controlled oscillator
Demo showing the simulation of a forced Van der Pol oscillator, solving second-order differential equations with specified initial conditions using a Verilog-A model
Demo simulating the characteristics of a microring modulator, illustrating how Verilog-A models of optoelectronic or photonic devices can be included
New experimental traveling-wave MZM module accounting for electrical impedance mismatch, signal reflections, and the velocity mismatch between optical wave and microwave
Enhanced module SmatrixMeasuredOpt for reading parameter-dependent S-matrices from a file with a new morphing-based algorithm to define interpolation settings for magnitude and phase, and optional integrity checks before simulation
Enhanced S-matrix assembly algorithm in the SMATRIX domain for fast and memory-efficient implementation via optional coarse frequency grid evaluation with subsequent interpolation, and control of supported polarization modes
New macro to add SMATRIX domain control parameters and illustrative demo for a scalable cascaded MRR DeMUX
Significantly extended macro for visualizing and creating PhotonicsTLM-based multisection and multicontact devices by enabling the addition, deletion, or duplication of sections
Demo characterizing the jitter of a hybrid mode-locked laser using a sinusoidal waveform
Demo illustrating a hybrid integrated MLL design coupling an III/V RSOA to an external low-loss SiN cavity consisting of a spiral waveguide and a Sagnac mirror
Demo illustrating the electro-optic expansion of a mutually injection-locked gain-switched optical frequency comb
Extended macros for characterizing and creating measured passive circuits to support SMATRIX galaxies with an arbitrary number of ports
Enhanced macro for characterizing passive circuits to choose between time- and frequency-domain simulation, and view all transfer functions simultaneously
Enhanced module and corresponding macro for the characterization of optical modulators with improved usability and new parameters controlling the generated optical and electrical signals
New grouping by specific simulation execution in the Analyzer Window Bar to streamline navigation between results
Extended editing syntax of Analyzer traces by treating them as objects with their operations and methods, and improved handling of binary operations for partly overlapping traces
Enabled eye diagram display for signals with a non-integer number of samples per symbol
Display of cursor coordinates in the bottom right corner of the Analyzer chart window
New option to directly edit common parameters of multiple module instances, simultaneously in the Parameter Editor
Enhanced Parameter Editor with automatically resized columns and improved autocomplete behavior
New option to specify explicitly the port data type of custom galaxies
New possibility to quickly access and copy attributes (ID, URN, position, links, file info) of objects on a schematic
Improved handling of corrupted schematics to ease repair by enabling opening them in the restricted mode and replacement of unknown modules with a placeholder
Improved handling of order of module execution by optionally synchronizing predecessors and successors, and ordering the initialization of modules
New silent mode for the Jupyter Cosim module, running JupyterLab in the background without user interaction
New module capable of collecting and storing float values as an argument to a user-defined function for evaluation over iterative simulations in iterations, multiple runs, and sweeps
New multiport cosimulation interfaces enabling sending and receiving complex, float, and electrical signals via multiple connections
Improved Message Log with Float Input module to dynamically adapt to the size of the inputs
New Input Value modules for receiving data from external processes and schematics with adequate APIs in SED and simulation scripts, serving as counterparts to the existing Post Value modules
Version 11.6 provides access to more than 900 ready-to-run simulation setups. New and improved demo examples illustrate the application of the new features and modules.
The application example illustrates the design of a DWDM 32QAM optical coherent system for datacenter interconnects. The transmitter employs an optical frequency comb (OFC) providing the tones for
8 channels with 75 GHz spacing.
Modulation is applied to all channels using an IQ modulator built with Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) Traveling Wave Mach-Zehnder modulators (TW-MZMs) of 60 GHz bandwidth.
After fiber transmission, the 8 channels are detected by an array of single-pol coherent receivers and passed individually to chains of DSP algorithms before SER estimation.
Setup and Results for high-capacity coherent datacenter interconnect link