Getting Started

This section explains how to load the Luceda PDK for Germanium-on-Silicon and basics of how to use it.

If you are unfamiliar with IPKISS, please have a look at the IPKISS documentation and samples. The documentation and samples are available from the IPKISS Control Center.

The latest IPKISS documentation is also available online at http://academy.lucedaphotonics.com.

Extracting the PDK

The PDK is distributed as a zip file, which you can install by dragging it into the Luceda Control Center.

For the purpose of this manual, we assume you have unzipped “cornerstone_ge_on_si-2026061.zip” as C:\designs\pdks\cornerstone_ge_on_si.

You can inspect the directory structure of the PDK:

  • docs/: Contains this file

  • docs/examples/: Example IPKISS python scripts

  • ipkiss/: IPKISS technology, cells and functions (Python)

  • openaccess/: Design libraries

  • openaccess/cornerstone_ge_on_si/: OpenAccess database for the PDK (L-Edit)

  • techfiles/: Tech files (layers, display) for various tools

  • techfiles/klayout/: Layer settings for KLayout GDSII visualization

Using the PDK with IPKISS

Setting up the editor environment

You can follow the instructions given in our documentation https://academy.lucedaphotonics.com/tutorials/environment_setup/create_project_pdk.html.

Examples

The PDK comes bundled with a series of examples for use in IPKISS, in the <path_to_pdk>\docs\examples. These are executable Python files. The examples are a good starting point to learn how to design with this PDK. Below is a summary of the shipped examples:

Example name

Description

inspect_pdk.py

Visualize all the layers, components and waveguide templates available in the Germanium-on-Silicon library.