Difra lab

2021: Creating software that reduces the time to create optical chips from two years to six months

On August 12, 2021, it became known about the creation in, Russia software reducing the time for creating optical chips from two years to six months. We are talking about a system called Difra lab, which was developed by specialists Perm State National University with support. Center of Competencies NTI "Photonika"

According to TASS, citing the press service of the university, there are no analogues of the program in Russia. Difra lab is designed for designing and modeling photon integrated circuits (FIS). Software, according to the developers, allows you to speed up the development process of FIS, and will also provide access to integrated photonics technologies to developers of telecommunications and medical systems, engineering facilities control devices and the environment.

In Russia, created software that reduces the time to create optical chips from two years to six months

Russian companies that are engaged in the development and creation of photonic integrated circuits, before the advent of Difra lab, used foreign software. The advent of Russian software will increase the independence of domestic manufacturers and strengthen the technological sovereignty of the country, the developers say.

Photonic integrated circuits are used in devices surrounding us in everyday life. This is high-speed Internet, tomographs, environmental monitoring systems and engineering facilities, the list can continue for a long time. It is important that reducing the time and simplifying the development process of FIS will make these technologies and new types of equipment based on them more accessible to every resident of Russia, "says Boris Likhachev, head of the Difra lab project.

Creation of photonic integrated circuits on optical chips includes determination of optical material, calculation of parameters of individual elements and subsequent "assembly" of these elements of the optical system on a virtual crystal. The Difra lab database will be gradually replenished with finished projects, so that assembly on a crystal can be reduced to three days.^[1]

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