VLC Photonics can work side by side with foundries to develop a photonic Process Design Kit (PDK). This PDK can provide photonic designers with a standard and lower-risk design environment, customized for the foundry-specific data, models and processes. This way, the foundry eases the access to its infrastructure, attracting more users and increasing their productivity and yield, while faster amortizing and profiting its investment in equipment and technology.

Such PDK can provide access to component-level design and simulations, circuit layouts and DRC/verification tools together with accurate photonic device models in a unified software framework and workflow. The design kit libraries usually contain customizable, easily expandable building blocks for schematic capture, simulation, physical layout, and verification. These allow anyone to easily create a complete PIC design tailored to the foundry process technology, covering both the front and back-end of the development.