PhotonForge 1.1.7 Documentation

PIC layout

PhotonForge is a design tool that integrates with foundry PDKs to speed up the design, simulation, and verification cycle for optical components and systems.

Installation

Simply go to tidy3d.simulation.cloud and sign up for an account. From there, just load our web GUI (no installation required) or continue with the next steps for the Python interface.

PhotonForge is a python module that can be easily installed via pip:

pip install "photonforge[live_viewer]"

This command will install PhotonForge and its dependencies in the current environment, including the optional LiveViewer dependencies. If you have Tidy3D already installed in a virtual environment, you can use the same environment for PhotonForge.

A Tidy3D API key is required to authenticate PhotonForge users. If you don’t have one already configured, you can get a free API key and configure it with the following command:

tidy3d configure

On Windows, it is easier to use pipx to find the path to the configuration tool:

pip install pipx
pipx run tidy3d configure

More information about the installation and configuration of Tidy3D can be found here.

You can verify that the PhotonForge installation worked by running the following command to print the installed version:

python -c 'import photonforge as pf; print(pf.__version__)'

Optional: PDK Installation

Proprietary foundry PDKs are loaded as PhotonForge technologies, which are distributed within each PDK package along with installation instructions.

Publicly available PDKs can be installed with pip. For example, to install SiEPIC OpenEBL or Luxtelligence LNOI400 PDKs for PhotonForge, simply use:

pip install siepic-forge
pip install luxtelligence-lnoi400-forge

Next Steps