VPIdeviceDesigner 2.8, released in March 2025, brings many exciting new features. The highlight of this release is the introduction of a flexible and versatile GDS layout import and export.
The new GDS functionality is designed to offer a powerful and flexible import and export of 3D layouts based on fabrication masks that can be customized and tailored to all kinds of components. VPIdeviceDesigner 2.8 introduces the following features:
Import 2D fabrication masks from GDS and OASIS files
Extrude structured 3D layers from 2D masks
Account for differences between the mask geometry and the resulting fabricated geometry by expanding or shrinking layers and adding sidewall angles
Import complex designs by utilizing the possibility to filter out parts of a mask and create intersections, unions, and inversions
Easily extract input and output port cross-sections of imported 3D layouts, analyze their modes, and use them for S-matrix calculations
Sweep geometry parameters of imported layouts to optimize component designs by applying custom transformation functions
Convert optimized component designs into 2D fabrication masks
Apply fabrication-aware corrections by expanding or shrinking masks before the export
Export 2D fabrication masks to GDS and OASIS files
We illustrate these features in two new application examples, which show how a 1x2 MMI can be imported from a GDS file, converted into a 3D design, changed in width and length, and exported to a GDS file.
Launch fields from rotated or bent waveguides into BPM simulations
Place input and outputs ports inside (not only at the edges) of the BPM simulation domain
Calculate scattering parameters between such ports
For example, analyze and optimize straight-ring or ring-ring coupler sections and AWG free propagation regions
We added a new application example which analyzes a straight-ring coupler and exports its S-matrix for further use in VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits.
Calculate the mode polarization fraction according to several different definitions, serving the needs for both integrated photonics and fiber optics applications
Calculate additional completely custom mode properties by "hooking" user-defined evaluations functions into the mode solver
For example, calculate a custom overlap integral during a parameter sweep and plot the parameter-dependent result as easily as the effective mode index or the group index
The mode polarization property is used in a new application example that illustrates how to visualize the mode dispersion and polarization of hybrid modes in an anisotropic lithium niobate waveguide.
A second new application example shows how custom mode properties can be utilized to analyze the second harmonic generation efficiency in a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide.
Added a semi-vectorial scheme to the beam propagation method (BPM) solver
Applicable when polarization coupling is negligible
Advantages: faster simulations, better stability for high index-contrast components
Added support for diagonally anisotropic 1D x-uniform waveguides
All mode solvers for isotropic and diagonally anisotropic 1D and 2D waveguide cross-sections are now based on the same finite-difference scheme, ensuring most consistent results.
BPM solver offers to choose between several sparse linear solvers to better handle badly conditioned simulations with tricky convergence behavior
BPM solver now calculates all field components (Ex, Ey, Ez, Hx, Hy, Hz)
Improved accuracy of BPM S-parameter calculations
Five new and three updated application examples