AI-Powered Photonic Design
Design Photonic Circuits at the Speed of Light
The first AI platform purpose-built for photonic circuit design.
Powered by open-source foundations · Trusted by photonic engineers worldwide
The Problem
A $14B Market Held Back by One Bottleneck.
PIC design requires a rare combination of PhD-level physics expertise and advanced programming skills. The global photonics market is projected to exceed $50B by the early 2030s — yet the shortage of qualified designers is the single biggest barrier to innovation.
The Rare Expertise Gap
Current tools demand complex Python scripting — a rare combination of semiconductor physics AND software engineering. A single PIC layout routinely takes weeks to months of iterative scripting and debugging.
The €100K Cost of Error
A tape-out costs €50K–€100K. DRC violations cause costly rejection cycles and missed MPW windows. Worse: functional errors pass DRC but only surface after fabrication — the chip is manufactured, paid for, and doesn’t work.
Institutional Knowledge Loss
Scripts are the tip of the iceberg — the visible result of thousands of failed attempts and reasoning chains that are never documented. When the expert leaves, the why vanishes with them.
The Contextless LLM Trap
Engineers increasingly turn to ChatGPT for PDK code — but raw LLMs hallucinate non-manufacturable structures and introduce severe IP leakage risk: proprietary designs sent to third-party servers with zero data protection.
Validated with the target group.
These aren't hypothetical pain points. They were confirmed through conversations with dozens of PIC engineers across academia and industry — at Ghent University, imec, and Huawei Technologies R&D Belgium.
The Platform
Chat. Canvas. Code. All in One.
Unlike approaches that use GenAI to generate circuit code directly, Dara uses AI for intent understanding only — every design action is constrained by deterministic physics tools that enforce manufacturing rules. Describe. Design. Deliver.
Describe
Chat
Natural-Language Intent
Tell Dara what you need in plain English. “Place a 2×4 splitter tree with 400 µm pitch.” The AI parses your intent, selects foundry-validated components from the active PDK, and stages them for placement — no scripting required. This is the “engineer next to you” paradigm, not the code generator paradigm.
Design
Canvas
Agent-Orchestrated Layout
Watch specialist agents place, route, and connect your circuit in real time. Manufacturing constraints are injected into the agent’s context before it acts — violations blocked proactively, not reactively. Every (reasoning, action) pair is logged, building an adaptive skill library that improves with each design.
Deliver
Code
Glass Box Transparency
Every AI decision produces fully inspectable, auto-generated Python — PEP-8 compliant, modular, and extensively commented. Export production-ready GDSII, review the full audit trail, and integrate with standard Git workflows. No black boxes. No vendor lock-in.
Describe. Design. Deliver.
Why Dara Is Fundamentally Different
Two-Layer Validation
DRC violations caught before fabrication. Functional errors (wrong coupling, mode mismatch) caught before tape-out — not after the €100K chip is manufactured.
Contextual Intelligence
Agents operate with deep PDK context. They understand why a waveguide must be routed a certain way — capturing the reasoning usually lost when the expert leaves.
Multi-PDK Support
One platform, every foundry. Switch between process design kits without reworking your layout.
Data Sovereignty
Stateless AI agents — no training on client data. PDK source code never reaches the AI. Dual IP protection with on-premise deployment available.
Under the Hood
Every Decision. Fully Inspectable.
Most AI tools are opaque. You get a result, but not the reasoning. Dara's Glass Box approach inverts this: every agent decision produces auto-generated PEP-8PEP-8: Python Enhancement Proposal 8 — Python style guide Python that is modular, extensively commented, and fully Git-compatible. The thousands of failed attempts and reasoning chains that are usually lost are now captured — permanently.
Full Audit Trail
Every agent reasoning step is logged. You see not just the result, but the why behind every design choice.
Auto-Generated Code
PEP-8 compliant Python — modular, extensively commented, and Git-compatible. No black boxes.
Reproducible Results
Export, review, and re-run in any environment. Re-ingest the generated code to continue iterating.
Agent Pipeline
Describe
Natural-language intent
Layout
Agent places & routes
Simulate
Physics validation
DRC Check
Rule compliance
Export
Production GDSII
Output
Production-Ready GDSII
+ Full audit trail + Inspectable Python code
Trust through transparency.
In photonics, reproducibility is non-negotiable. Dara captures not just the design, but the full reasoning chain — so when the expert leaves, the knowledge stays.
Capabilities
Six Pillars. One Platform.
From intent to tape-out, Dara covers every stage of the photonic design workflow. Each capability is built on the same agent-first architecture — designed to work together, not as disconnected tools bolted on after the fact.
Design Compiler
Intent to Layout
Describe what you need in natural language. Dara’s hierarchical planning pipeline decomposes your intent into a complete circuit architecture — selecting foundry-validated components, computing placement, and generating optimized routing paths.
Sim Engine
Physics-Grounded Validation
Every design is validated against a deterministic physics engine before it reaches fabrication. Coupling ratios, mode confinement, bend loss, and waveguide performance are checked continuously — not as a post-processing step.
IP Fortress
Data Sovereignty by Design
Stateless AI agents never train on your data. PDK source code is loaded at runtime and never transmitted. Dual IP protection with on-premise deployment available — because your photonic designs are your competitive advantage.
Glass Box
Full Transparency
No black boxes. Every agent action, reasoning step, and design decision is logged in a full audit trail. Auto-generated Python code is yours to keep, review, and version-control.
Team Orchestration
Multi-User, Multi-Circuit
Manage multiple circuits in a single project. Collaborate across teams with version-controlled designs, shared component libraries, and role-based access — all in a unified web-based environment.
Standards Compliance
Foundry-Ready Output
DRC-clean GDSII output that meets foundry tape-out requirements. Multi-PDK support means one platform for every foundry — switch process design kits without reworking your layout.
Data Sovereignty
Your IP. Architecturally Protected.
Most AI platforms promise they won't look at your data. Dara makes it architecturally impossible. Stateless agents process your designs in memory and discard them after execution — there is nothing to steal, subpoena, or accidentally leak.
Three-Layer Protection
Stateless Agents
AI agents process your design in memory, then discard all data. No persistence, no model training on client data. Ever.
PDK Source Isolation
Foundry PDK source code is loaded at runtime and never transmitted to AI models. The agent sees component specs, not proprietary code.
On-Premise Deployment
For maximum security, deploy the entire platform behind your firewall. Full air-gapped operation available.
Zero Data Retention
0 bytes stored
No Cloud Training
Models never learn from your data
Dual IP Protection
Your design + foundry PDK
They can't steal what doesn't exist.
Stateless architecture means your photonic designs are processed in-memory and never persisted. This isn't a policy — it's a technical impossibility.
Verified Metrics
Numbers. Not Marketing.
Built on a battle-tested open-source foundation and validated against real foundry tape-out requirements. These aren't projections — they're measured.
tests
Automated Test Suite
Continuous integration pipeline
seconds
Design Generation
Intent to GDSII layout
PDKs
Foundry Support
Multi-process compatibility
Git-native
Version Control
Every design fully diffable
components
Component Library
Validated building blocks
DRC pass
First-Pass Yield
Pre-validated against rules
Ready to Design Without Compromise?
Join the waitlist for early access to Dara — the first AI-powered photonic design platform that keeps your intellectual property where it belongs: with you.
- Full design sovereignty — your IP never leaves your infrastructure
- AI-accelerated layout from concept to GDSII in seconds
- Foundry-validated PDK support for production-ready chips