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PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit)
A PIC is a chip that integrates multiple optical functions on a single substrate — guiding, modulating, filtering, and detecting light — analogous to an integrated circuit in electronics.
How is a PIC built?
A typical PIC contains waveguides that guide light, grating couplers connecting the chip to an optical fiber, Mach-Zehnder modulators that change the signal, ring resonators that filter wavelengths, and photodiodes that detect the signal. All these elements are designed and verified numerically before sending the masks to the fab (tape-out), because changing the design after production is costly and time-consuming.
Applications
PICs power optical transceivers in data centers, WDM/DWDM telecommunications systems, photonic sensors, LiDAR systems in autonomous vehicles, and quantum key distribution (QKD) systems.
Related terms
Silicon photonics
Optical waveguide
Compact model (PIC)
A complete PIC design toolchain
OptiSystem and OptiSPICE let you simulate a PIC at the system and circuit level, from a single component to a complete transceiver.
See OptiSystem
See OptiSPICE