“POET Technologies’ III-V process and devices IP represent a significant innovation for our industry,” comments Terry Ma, Synopsys’ VP of engineering for TCAD. “This collaboration with POET will combine the strengths of our TCAD modeling expertise and POET’s innovative technologies to provide leading-edge semiconductor companies significant benefits for next-generation semiconductor designs.”

The PET PDK and process offers lower cost and simpler process fab options for applications that do not require the full POET optical feature set, says the firm. Due to the high mobility inherent in III-V materials, PET technology is predicted to deliver performance that could be equivalent to 3-4 nodes ahead of mainstream technologies, it is reckoned. Further performance and capabilities will be enabled by incorporating in-plane optical intra- and inter-chip signaling capabilities within the electrical technology.

The PET/PDK is scheduled to be available at the end of fourth-quarter 2014 and will allow POET to provide detailed design information to industry fab partners and customers. This will enable pre-semiconductor design evaluation to integrate optical, analog and digital functions together, says POET. PET-based electronic devices represent a breakthrough in performance and power efficiency, the firm claims.

“This [the 40nm technology node] is an aggressive target for our POET devices and process IP,” says Copetti. “This will demonstrate to the industry the significance and the strengths of POET compared to the performance and power efficiency of today’s widely used technologies.”