Nazca Design is free, as in free speech and in free beer.
Why PDKs are not free in the same way?
Nazca Design is released under open source license AGPLv3. Foundry PDKs contain foundry intellectual property and are under copyright and/or a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the foundry. Besides that, for both designer and foundry it is critical to use an up-to-date and a validated PDK when submitting a PIC design for manufacturing.
A continuous and dedicated effort is performed to keep Nazca PDK quality at the highest level in the PIC industry. With the subscription you support this quality. By using Nazca you save 10s of thousands in licensing cost and speed up your design process significantly. If you would like to test Nazca PDKs for free, simply check out the DemoFab tutorials on the Nazca website.
PDK – Process Design Kit: collection of foundry-specific data files and script files for component and chip design.
MPW – Multi-Project Wafer: integration onto a wafer a number of different circuit designs from various customers.
For who
- Designers that want to submit their designs in one MPW run,
- Students, researchers, PIC designers that do not require design or layout support.
For who
- Designers that want to submit their designs in multiple MPW runs,
- Students, researchers, PIC designers that do not require design or layout support.
For who
- Designers that want to submit their designs in MPW runs and need support.
For non-standard requests, e.g. combining multiple PDK subscriptions, extended layout support, custom circuit design, please contact info@brightphotonics.eu.
Available PDKs
- SMART Photonics
- Fraunhofer HHI
- Imec
Feel free to contact us for custom foundry implementation: info@brightphotonics.eu.