OSSINING, N.Y. -- RSoft Design Group, a leader in photonics design automation (PDA) software, has released a new version of its award-winning photonic component design suite, the RSoft Passive Device Suite 6.0. The suite provides a fully integrated design environment that allows users to use different simulation programs to model various aspects of photonic devices. The new release includes a significantly enhanced control program, the RSoft CAD Environment 6.0, as well as important updates to the simulation tools: BeamPROP 6.0, FullWAVE 4.0, BandSOLVE 2.0, GratingMOD 1.5, and DiffractMOD 1.5.

Since the last major release, many new features have been added that significantly extend both the modeling capabilities and usability of the suite. These new functionalities enable new application areas to be addressed, including high-contrast silicon photonic integrated circuits (PICs), photonic crystal cavities, LED efficiency, image sensors, meta-materials, and optical metrology. Additionally, RSoft is the first PDA vendor to provide versions of these programs on both 64-bit Windows and Linux platforms, including Opteron and Itanium systems, allowing users to harness the computing power of these systems.

New functionality added to the RSoft CAD Environment, the interface for all the passive simulation tools, allows a variety of new applications to be modeled. Its unique hierarchical and array layout features provide a convenient method of creating complicated waveguide and PBG?based PICs. A comprehensive material editor easily defines most material properties for both permittivity and permeability such as 2nd and 3rd order nonlinearities, dispersion via multiple Lorentizan, Drude, or Debye models, anisotropy, and loss. Another major upgrade is an interface to RSoft's Multi-variable Optimization and Scanning Tool, MOST. While MOST is a separate package, some its scanning capabilities are now included as part of the basic CAD environment. Other enhancements include 3D index visualization and direct input of user data through symbol table functions.

In addition to these CAD updates, the individual tools have been updated as well. Highlights include BeamPROP 6.0, RSoft's BPM simulation tool, which now has improved capabilities for 3D full-vector simulation important for high-contrast waveguides such as silicon PICs. Following the clear trend of using FDTD-based simulation tools to design realistic functional nanophotonic devices, RSoft's FullWAVE 4.0 includes improved plane wave launches, Q calculation for resonant cavities, and improved clustering ability making it even easier to perform 3D and large-scale FDTD simulations. BandSOLVE 2.0, RSoft?s simulation package for photonic bandgap structures, includes improved simulation of PBG slabs, and DiffractMOD 1.5 includes common measurements used in optical metrology applications.

RSoft Design Group Inc.