A versatile modular computational tool for complex optoelectronic integrated circuits simulation

A novel graphical computational tool to simulate a wide variety of complex optoelectronic integrated circuits is presented. Based upon a modular approach, this tool reduces the optical circuit into a sequence of interconnected building blocks, each one performing a specific data-flow oriented function onto an input optical stream. The modularity and the flow-based interconnectivity makes this simulator flexible and powerful, yet intuitive. Its execution speed is evaluated using a sophisticated amplifier simulation module that is compared against its replica written in a text-based programming language. More than four times outperformance is reported. The simulator capabilities are further demonstrated through an application example in the field of optical data processing: the analysis of a semiconductor optical amplifier-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer operated as wavelength converter for signals modulated at 40 Gb/s. This simulator represents an attractive alternative to more traditional approaches.