This story is one in a 10-part series marking AIM Photonics’ 10th Anniversary by highlighting the Institute’s Top 10 Milestone Accomplishments of the past decade.
Laying the Groundwork:
Building U.S. Strength in Photonic Design
Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are the invisible engines behind many of today’s fastest-moving technologies—from lightning-fast internet and AI-powered devices to compact medical sensors that enable early disease detection and continuous health monitoring. As demand grows for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient systems, integrated photonics has emerged as the most promising path forward, especially as traditional electronics approach their physical and performance limits.
Yet designing PICs has long been the domain of a few specialized institutions with access to custom tools, deep expertise, and significant resources. Unlike microelectronics, where design tools were widely available and well-established, photonic design automation has been slower to mature, leaving much of U.S. industry unable to capitalize on this transformative shift.
AIM Photonics is changing that by making advanced design tools broadly available—unlocking new applications, accelerating product development, and empowering a wider range of innovators to shape the future. Through a robust suite of design enablement tools, including process design kits (PDKs) as well as assembly and test support, AIM Photonics is giving U.S. innovators the capabilities they need to confidently design complex PICs for real-world manufacturing.
By building this design infrastructure within a single, accessible Institute, AIM Photonics is strengthening domestic manufacturing, advancing national defense priorities, and giving U.S. industry a competitive edge in global photonics innovation.
From Concept to Chip: The Role of PDKs
At the core of this design infrastructure are AIM Photonics’ process design kits. PDKs serve as the bridge between creative design ideas and real-world fabrication. Each PDK is a software-based toolkit with a library of validated building blocks such as waveguides, detectors, and modulators, along with the rules and parameters necessary to ensure PICs can be successfully fabricated through AIM Photonics’ manufacturing processes.
Developing a PDK begins with modeling and simulation work followed by the fabrication and physical characterization of the components to measure how they will perform under real operating conditions. These data are translated into compact models and design rules that integrate seamlessly with EPDA tools. Through careful fabrication and testing, AIM Photonics’ PDKs are validated to ensure that what’s created in software behaves as expected in the hardware. This process gives designers confidence that their layouts accurately reflect the realities of fabrication, enabling more predictable and reliable outcomes and providing first-pass design success.
Design Tools for Real-World Deployment
PDKs are only part of the process. To support the full lifecycle of PIC development, AIM Photonics is expanding its design toolkit to include Assembly Design Kits (ADKs) and Measurement Design Kits (MDKs).
The ADK will give designers the resources to build PICs that are compatible with the advanced packaging and assembly capabilities of AIM Photonics’ Test, Assembly, and Packaging (TAP) facility in Rochester, NY and fabrication facility in Albany, NY. By designing for assembly from the outset, users can minimize rework, reduce delays, and bring fully packaged photonic products to market faster.
The MDK provides the tools to design for testing requirements. With standardized test structures and alignment features, users can take advantage of TAP’s sophisticated measurement capabilities, speeding up validation and ensuring consistency across designs.
By addressing assembly and test alongside design and fabrication, AIM Photonics is helping users navigate the entire development process with fewer obstacles and greater predictability. In many cases this significantly accelerates the lab-to-fab timeline and helps commercial readiness levels.
Lowering Barriers, Enabling Innovation
This comprehensive suite of tools dramatically lowers the technical and financial barriers to entry for working with PICs. Startups, universities, and small companies no longer need to invest in custom infrastructure or develop expertise from scratch. Instead, they can rely on a standardized, validated design environment that supports their innovation goals, which is especially critical in commercial markets, where time-to-market and cost efficiency are essential to competitive readiness and profitability. This enables startups to focus their limited resources on refining their products, while established companies can explore new photonics applications without wasting time and money reinventing the design process.
By making it easier to participate in advanced technology markets, AIM Photonics is broadening the base of innovators and institutions contributing to U.S. PIC development. This is helping to build a more dynamic and resilient industrial base—one in which multiple stakeholders can respond to emerging needs across critical fields such as communications, healthcare, and defense.
Supporting a Broad Range of Technologies
AIM Photonics’ expanding library of PDKs supports a versatile and growing set of photonics platforms, including active and passive silicon photonics, low-loss platforms, electronic interposers, and quantum-capable offerings. Each platform is optimized for specific performance needs, from ultra-low optical loss to compatibility with quantum or hybrid electronic-photonic designs. This breadth of capabilities gives users the flexibility to tailor solutions across a wide range of applications with significant economic potential and national security importance.
By enabling multiple technology pathways within a standardized, accessible design environment, AIM Photonics has helped users move more quickly from research to deployment—with some reporting development cycles accelerated by as much as two-thirds. That kind of speed not only improves everyone’s return on investment but also allows organizations to respond more rapidly to market opportunities and mission-critical needs, gaining a critical edge in a field where timing is everything.
A Strategic Asset for National Competitiveness
More than just a technical resource, AIM Photonics’ design infrastructure is a long-term investment in U.S. innovation, economic resilience, and national security. By giving American companies and organizations the tools to design, prototype, and manufacture advanced photonic systems onshore, AIM Photonics is helping safeguard critical technologies and reduce reliance on foreign supply chains.
AIM Photonics’ ability to significantly accelerate technology development also has wide-reaching implications. It means new ideas can get to market faster, strengthening U.S. leadership in high-value technology sectors. It means more opportunities for American workers, more secure control over sensitive intellectual property, and more responsive innovation in areas vital to both commercial growth and defense readiness.
In a rapidly shifting global landscape, AIM Photonics is enabling the U.S. to lead in the development of next-generation technologies.