Validation of the building block based approach for the design of photonic integrated circuits

The concept of building block and circuit-model simulation in photonics are presented and discussed, pointing out their key role in a generic foundry approach. Circuit simulation based on building-block approach, in addition and alternative to the classical electromagnetic analysis, emerges as the most useful framework for a deep exploitation of the potentiality of photonics for the large scale integration of complex circuits. The reliability of building-block based design and simulation of photonics integrated circuits is discussed and comparisons between simulated and measured behaviour of three challenging test circuits are used as proof-of-concept of the validity of this approach.