AGPhotonics scales photonic chip design from lab to market with Ansys and ESSS
“The significant impact that simulation has on our development is that we must understand that what costs the most is time. To release a new generation of chips, you need at least six months of manufacturing, preceded by a month and a half of design. Simulation allows us to move very quickly and never miss a new generation, a new manufacturing run.”
Jérôme Taillieu, RF and Electronics Team Lead at AGPhotonics
Born as a spin-off from the University of Málaga, AGPhotonics operates at the forefront of technological innovation, dedicated to transforming advanced university research into viable commercial products. The company develops high-performance photonic chips, operating in a sector where millimeter precision and time-to-market are crucial for success. With the growing demand for increasingly efficient optical and electronic technologies, ensuring production scalability with extreme reliability has become the company’s main objective.
To lead this transformation and optimize its hardware development process, AGPhotonics needed to unify its engineering teams. It was through the ESSS Startup Program that the company found in Ansys simulation solutions, combined with close technical support, the ideal strategic partners to change its level of innovation.
The productive bottleneck in the photonics manufacturing cycle
In the development of photonic chips, the innovation cycle does not allow for late failures. Before the consolidation of an integrated virtual environment, any unforeseen design error could be very costly. To release a new generation of chips, the AGPhotonics team needs about a month and a half of design, followed by six months of manufacturing.
Any anomaly identified only after physical production would mean the loss of an entire manufacturing run, generating not only a huge financial loss but a critical half-year delay in delivering new products to the market. This reality made absolute precision in the design phase a non-negotiable rule.
Multiphysics integration: connecting optical, thermal, and electromagnetic simulation
To meet this goal and ensure project robustness before manufacturing, AGPhotonics partnered with ESSS to integrate multiple simulation fronts into a single virtual workflow. Through the ESSS Startup Program, the company adopted a powerful set of Ansys multiphysics solutions:
- Ansys Lumerical Multiphysics™: Simulation of photonic components at the photon level and optical integrated circuits.
- Ansys HFSS™: High-frequency electromagnetic analysis for RF and electronics integration.
- Ansys Icepak®: Thermal management analysis of the chip.
- Ansys Speos® and Ansys Zemax OpticStudio®: Design and optical validation of the complete system.
This integrated approach allows for meticulous prediction of component behavior and the correction of physical deviations derived from manufacturing even before production begins. Through this virtual prototyping and validation, the team can exhaust the possibilities of error in the numerical environment, ensuring that the physical chip perfectly matches the digital design.
From the University of Málaga to the global market
The impacts of this technological unification on the development cycle were immediate. By anticipating and correcting flaws in the virtual model through retrosimulation, AGPhotonics eliminated dreaded manufacturing rework and successfully protected its long manufacturing cycles.
The speed of interaction and continuous technical support provided by ESSS acted as a true catalyst for growth. Today, the company can not only avoid delays but scale the design of its photonic chips with total confidence, moving rapidly from the lab to the market with each new product generation.
Highlights
- Company: AGPhotonics (deep-tech spin-off from the University of Málaga).
- Challenge: Protect the 6-month manufacturing and 1.5-month design cycle against failures and rework in photonic chips.
- Solution: Multiphysics integration (electromagnetic, photonic, thermal, and optical) via Ansys simulation and technical support through the ESSS Startup Program.
- Result: Elimination of production delays, validation of virtual prototypes before physical manufacturing, and acceleration of scale from lab to market.
About AGPhotonics
Founded in 2023 as a deep-tech spin-off from the University of Málaga, AGPhotonics was born from the Photonics and RF Research Laboratory. The company specializes in the development of fully integrated silicon photonic transceivers for free-space optical communications (wireless), operating from chip design to the final terminal, with its own laboratories for prototype testing and validation.
About ESSS
ESSS has gained international recognition by providing a complete range of numerical simulation solutions to over 1500 companies in sectors such as oil and gas, aerospace, mining, automotive, and energy, accompanied by superior customer support and related engineering services. These capabilities enable customers to take full advantage of the Ansys multiphysics portfolio while exposing simulation to all levels of the engineering organization. ESSS is an Apex Channel Partner and the official representative of Ansys, part of Synopsys, for Latin America, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
