Keysight Certifies Photonic Designer for Tower PH18
Keysight Technologies has certified its Advanced Design System Photonic Designer to support Tower Semiconductor's PH18 silicon photonics process design kits.
Updated on Nov. 9, 2026 in Semiconductors
Keysight Technologies certified its Advanced Design System Photonic Designer to support Tower Semiconductor's PH18 silicon photonics process design kits. The PH18 PDK is now available for the ADS Photonic Designer.
Why it matters
As optical link rates climb toward 1600G and beyond, electrical and optical interactions increasingly determine system performance. The certification lets design teams simulate these interactions within a single environment rather than transferring data across separate tools.
The PH18 PDK provides physics-based models of photonic components, and ADS performs design rule check compliant photonic layout devices. Performance gains from the integration have not been quantified in the announcement.
The players
Keysight Technologies
Keysight Technologies is a publicly traded electronic measurement company listed on the NYSE under the ticker KEYS, and it develops the Advanced Design System software used by chip designers.
Tower Semiconductor
Tower Semiconductor is a specialty foundry that manufactures analog and silicon photonics semiconductors for customers across multiple industries.
The details
Designers can integrate physics-based photonic component models directly into electrical-optical-electrical simulations, and ADS performs designer-level layout versus schematic checks before fabrication. Foundry-level verification and tapeout are completed using Tower tools.
Timeline
A decade-long period preceded the announcement, during which Tower RF processes ran on Keysight ADS.
November 9, 2026: Keysight certified ADS Photonic Designer for the Tower PH18 PDK.
The Tower PH18 PDK for ADS Photonic Designer is available now.
The Tech Race
The certification extends the silicon photonics PDK workflow that Tower has offered for its PH18 platform, bringing photonic device models into the electrical design environment engineers already use. It positions Keysight's ADS against rival design tool suites competing for photonics-integrated chip design.
Engineers designing photonics-integrated chips can now simulate electrical and optical interactions in one environment rather than moving data between separate tools. The change affects design workflow and verification time rather than end-user products directly.
The takeaway
Design teams building optical interconnects should weigh whether unified electrical-optical simulation can shorten their verification cycles before committing to a fabrication process.
Further reading
Explore more on the Semiconductors beat for context on how chip design tools are evolving.
