The first end-to-end
Photonic Design Automation

PhotonForge integrates with foundry PDKs to speed up the design,
simulation, and verification cycle for photonic integrated circuits.

Support foundry PDKs

AIM Photonics LIGENTEC Fraunhofer imec GlobalFoundries Tower Semiconductor LXT
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Trusted by more than 250 companies & academic institutions

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PHOTONFORGE
ADVANTAGES

A unified, fabrication-aware design automation platform that brings the entire PIC development workflow into a single, high-performance environment.

Photonic Canvas
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Foundry PDKs
Foundry PDKs
Tape Out Ready
PhotonForge directly accesses foundry PDKs, empowering users to build foundry-aware designs that are inherently aligned with specific manufacturing constraints. This integration eliminates the guesswork and manual back-and-forth traditional workflows, reduces development cycles, and accelerates the time-to-market.
End-To-End
End-To-End
Photonic Design Automation
Leveraging Tidy3D's GPU-native solvers for device-level accuracy, PhotonForge seamlessly integrates component simulation into full-scale layout and circuit schematics, delivering a high-speed, end-to-end workflow that transforms complex photonic concepts into automated, tape-out-ready designs.
Circuit Layout
Circuit Layout
Integrate Design and Simulation
PhotonForge revolutionizes photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design by seamlessly integrating layout creation and circuit simulation into a unified platform. This integration streamlines the design process, enabling engineers to transition effortlessly from schematic layouts to comprehensive circuit simulations.

Testimonials

Recommendations from our customers

"We believe that PhotonForge is the right approach to photonic circuit simulations. It allows us to accurately simulate components with the powerful Tidy3D engine and seamlessly integrate them into circuits and layout, using Python code or the GUI. [...] This opens up new options for our designs and also saves a lot of time. As a startup the credit system helps us not spending more than we need, and the support has been superb."

avatar
Miguel Carro Temboury
Senior Optical Design Engineer at Bifrost Communications

"With PhotonForge it's extremely simple to define the material stack of any integrated photonics technology, and validating the operation of photonic building blocks or whole circuits is a matter of a few lines of code. Similar to Tidy3D, the engineer's task is facilitated by top-notch documentation and examples, and by excellent customer support by the tool developers themselves."

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Alberto Beccari
Head of Photonic Design at Luxtelligence

"PhotonForge provides us with intuitive integration to Tidy3D, easy scripting and 3D viewing of complex photonic circuits, in addition to robust automation features, such as automatic port detection based on path profiles and automated simulation boundary definitions. Combined with the extensive component library, the user-friendly GUI simplifies our design and debugging process, while also allowing us to leverage the FDTD performance offered by Tidy3D.”

avatar
Szilard Szoke
Staff Engineer, Photonic Design at Quintessent

STREAMLINE WITH
END-TO-END CAPABILITIES

Bring the best products to market faster with PhotonForge - empowering your team with design collaboration that fuels innovation.

Quick Start

PHOTONFORGE
FEATURES

PhotonForge provides a complete photonic design automation platform, combining layout generation, circuit simulation, and foundry PDK integration into a single system. The platform supports real-world photonic integrated circuits and prepares consistent, fabrication-ready designs across foundries and use cases, for both interactive design workflows and automated pipelines.

01

Foundry PDK Integration

Integrates directly with foundry process design kits, enabling designers to work within real fabrication constraints from the start. Technology definitions, layer mappings, and design rules are applied automatically, ensuring that layouts are fabrication-ready without manual checking.

Foundry PDK Integration
02

Hierarchical Component Design

Supports hierarchical design of photonic components, from individual waveguides and couplers to complex multi-level circuits. Components can be composed, parameterized, and reused across designs, enabling scalable photonic circuit architectures with consistent behavior and verified connectivity.

03

Circuit simulations in both frequency and time-domain

PhotonForge computes photonic components using Tidy3D's GPU-native multiphysics solvers, captures coupling, scattering, and mode behavior with high fidelity, and provides reliable performance data for circuit-level analysis and design optimization in both frequency and time domains.

04

Powerful GUI Interface: Photonic Canvas

Photonic Canvas, the intuitive GUI of PhotonForge, redefines the design experience by unifying the entire development cycle within a single, streamlined interface. Engineers can seamlessly transition from schematic-driven layouts to fabrication-ready GDS files while running high-performance simulations in real time.

Photonic Canvas GUI
05

Example Library & Reuse

Includes a growing library of pre-built photonic components, devices, and chip layouts, and enables teams to build custom component libraries with verified simulation models. Reusable components accelerate design cycles and ensure consistency across projects and team members.

WEBINAR
Listen, Learn, and Master
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PhotonForge Recurrent Seminar

PhotonForge Recurrent Seminar

By Flexcompute
Fabrication-Aware PIC Design with PDK Support

Fabrication-Aware PIC Design with PDK Support

By Flexcompute
Getting Started With PIC Design In PhotonForge: From Layout To Simulation

Getting Started With PIC Design In PhotonForge: From Layout To Simulation

By Flexcompute
BLOG
The Stories of Simulation Technology
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CASE STUDY
Get Inspired to Design Your Own Devices
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VIDEO
In-Depth, Practical and Easily Understand
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Flexcompute PhotonForge: A Unified Photonic Design Automation Platform

Flexcompute PhotonForge: A Unified Photonic Design Automation Platform

2:36 By Flexcompute
Foundry-Ready End-to-End Photonic Active Design with PhotonForge

Foundry-Ready End-to-End Photonic Active Design with PhotonForge

59:35 By Flexcompute

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

PhotonForge Customer Technical Support

If you encounter any technical difficulties or have inquiries related to using PhotonForge, kindly submit a Customer Technical Support form below.

To ensure efficient assistance, please provide a thorough description of the issue or question, along with relevant screenshots or a link to a Loom Recording.

As a token of our appreciation, for well-documented and confirmed bug reports, we will reward you with up to 50 FlexCredits for verified bug reports.