Tower Semiconductor and OpenLight integrate design tools for photonics

Tower Semiconductor and OpenLight have announced the integration of OpenLight’s Process Design Kit (PDK) into Cadence electronic design automation (EDA) tools. This ecosystem is specifically designed for Tower Semiconductor’s PH18DA indium phosphide-on-silicon photonics platform.

The collaboration aims to streamline the development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) by allowing designers to work within familiar integrated circuit (IC) environments. The PH18DA platform enables the integration of active photonic components, such as lasers, modulators, and amplifiers, onto a single chip. This technology targets high-performance applications including AI infrastructure, optical interconnects, sensing, and the development of 400G and 1.6T laser-integrated PICs.

Separately, OpenLight reported a $50 million Series A-1 funding round, bringing its total funding to $84 million.