Optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) have experienced rapid development in both integration scale and functional complexity, thanks to advances in silicon-on-insulator (SOI)-based photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and manufacturing processes. As a result, OEIC design increasingly depends on electro-photonic design automation (EPDA) tools, with link-level simulation and verification playing crucial roles. Currently, there are two primary methods for OEIC link-level simulations. 1) Co-simulation using PDA and EDA tools (e.g., Lumerical Interconnect and Cadence Virtuoso). This method requires the simultaneous use of multiple commercial software platforms and is prone to convergence issues, particularly in scenarios involving optoelectronic feedback loops. 2) Simulation using traditional EDA tools (e.g., SPICE and Verilog-A). This approach benefits from a unified model description language and allows users to simulate custom-developed models. However, it requires representing optical port signals, with electrical equivalents, which leads to complex models and interconnections due to the fundamental differences in the physical principles governing optical (signal flow graph theory) and electrical signals (Kirchhoff’s Voltage and Current Laws). To overcome these challenges, we explore the feasibility of conducting OEIC simulations on a single open platform and propose an effective link-level modeling and simulation method.

To address these challenges of requiring multiple platforms for optoelectronic co-simulation or representing optical signals with equivalent electrical signals in traditional electronic circuit simulation platforms, we propose a unified open-platform method for link-level modeling and simulation of OEICs. The approach begins by defining bidirectional transmission signals for optical port connections, which, when combined with existing signal representations for electrical ports, form a unified and generalized model framework based on differential-algebraic equations to describe the time-domain input-output characteristics of optoelectronic devices. The proposed optoelectronic co-simulation engine enables the direct interconnection of photonic, electronic, and optoelectronic device models through optical or electrical ports, generating a netlist and deriving system-level equations. These equations, rooted in the physical properties of optical and electrical ports (as opposed to traditional methods that use KVL and KCL in SPICE for equivalent optical ports), accurately describe the entire optoelectronic circuit. By solving these system-level equations, the method efficiently conducts transient simulations, providing precise optical and electrical signal values at each port and internal node of the circuit.

The proposed optoelectronic link-level modeling and simulation method is applied to two examples and compared with Verilog-A in Cadence. For the all-pass microring resonator, the average relative error between the two methods is less than 1.435% (Fig. 6). For the optoelectronic transceiver, the average relative errors for optical and electrical signals are less than 0.0494% and 0.1949%, respectively (Figs. 11 and 12), demonstrating excellent agreement. These results confirm that the proposed method can simultaneously solve the complex electric field signal values (E) at optical nodes, as well as the node voltage (V) and branch current (I) at electrical nodes within a unified open platform. Compared to commercial simulation software, differences exist in transient simulation algorithms, numerical solving errors, and potential improvements in simulation efficiency. However, the proposed optoelectronic circuit simulation method exhibits significant advantages in terms of reduced modeling complexity, standardized model definitions, enhanced model expandability, improved simulation compatibility and integration across EICs, PICs, and OEICs, and its ability to support multi-physics simulations of optoelectronic systems (Table 1).

In this paper, we propose a link-level modeling and simulation method for OEICs using the MATLAB platform. The method first defines specifications for bidirectional transmission optical port signals using complex electric fields and constructs a unified and generalized model framework for photonic, electronic, and optoelectronic devices. Then, we develop an optoelectronic co-simulation engine, which generates system-level equations from the optoelectronic circuit netlist formed by connecting device models. Finally, by solving these system-level equations, transient simulations are efficiently conducted to determine the optical and electrical signals at each port and internal node of the circuit. Two simulation examples demonstrate the method’s accuracy in calculating the variations in optical fields of an all-pass microring resonator and the time-domain output characteristics of an optoelectronic transceiver. Compared to simulation results from the Verilog-A EDA platform, the average relative error in optical field intensity variations for the microring resonator is less than 1.435%, while the average relative errors in the optical signal and electrical signal for the optoelectronic transceiver are less than 0.0494% and 0.1949%, respectively. This paper confirms the feasibility of modeling and simulating OEICs on a single open platform and provides an open, standardized, and efficient approach for OEIC modeling and simulation.