Democratizing Electronic-Photonic AI Systems: An Open-Source AI-Infused Cross-Layer Co-Design and Design Automation Toolflow
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Abstract (arXiv)
Photonics is becoming a cornerstone technology for high-performance AI systems and scientific computing, offering unparalleled speed, parallelism, and energy efficiency. Despite this promise, the design and deployment of electronic-photonic AI systems remain highly challenging due to a steep learning curve across multiple layers, spanning device physics, circuit design, system architecture, and AI algorithms. The absence of a mature electronic-photonic design automation (EPDA) toolchain leads to long, inefficient design cycles and limits cross-disciplinary innovation and co-evolution. In this work, we present a cross-layer co-design and automation framework aimed at democratizing photonic AI system development. We begin by introducing our architecture designs for scalable photonic edge AI and Transformer inference, followed by SimPhony, an open-source modeling tool for rapid EPIC AI system evaluation and design-space exploration. We then highlight advances in AI-enabled photonic design automation, including physical AI-based Maxwell solvers, a fabrication-aware inverse design framework, and a scalable inverse training algorithm for meta-optical neural networks, enabling a scalable EPDA stack for next-generation electronic-photonic AI systems.
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References · 12
- 2020Fourier Neural Operator for Parametric Partial Differential Equationscited by 2,908
- 2019DeepONet: Learning nonlinear operators for identifying differential equations based on the universal approximation theorem of operatorscited by 2,018
- 2022NeurOLight: A Physics-Agnostic Neural Operator Enabling Parametric Photonic Device Simulationcited by 17
- 2023Lightening-Transformer: A Dynamically-operated Optically-interconnected Photonic Transformer Acceleratorcited by 15
- 2020Inverse design of photonic crystals through automatic differentiationcited by 10
- 2022WaveY-Net: Physics-augmented deep learning for high-speed electromagnetic simulation and optimizationcited by 8
- 2024SimPhony: A Device-Circuit-Architecture Cross-Layer Modeling and Simulation Framework for Heterogeneous Electronic-Photonic AI Systemcited by 7
- 2024TeMPO: Efficient Time-Multiplexed Dynamic Photonic Tensor Core for Edge AI with Compact Slow-Light Electro-Optic Modulatorcited by 6
- 2024SCATTER: Algorithm-Circuit Co-Sparse Photonic Accelerator with Thermal-Tolerant, Power-Efficient In-situ Light Redistributioncited by 6
- 2024PACE: Pacing Operator Learning to Accurate Optical Field Simulation for Complicated Photonic Devicescited by 5
- 2025MAPS: Multi-Fidelity AI-Augmented Photonic Simulation and Inverse Design Infrastructurecited by 2
- 2025SP2RINT: Spatially-Decoupled Physics-Inspired Progressive Inverse Optimization for Scalable, PDE-Constrained Meta-Optical Neural Network Trainingcited by 1
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