Hi All, I have a question about the possibilities of utilization of photo diodes in our project. Seems that there is a primitive of a photo diode in the PDK and in the magic device generator. There were some discussions on the channel that revealed that the device is likely a pretty new one in the PDK. Our group has some doubts about the feasibility of our idea related to the following issues: (1) how to deal with the flip chip packaging in order to provide a method of light exposure onto the diode surface, if possible ? (2) how to exclude zones over the photo diodes from metal layers ?. Any help or comments would be highly appreciated. @Boris Murmann, @Tim Edwards Kind regards

(1a) ChipIgnite projects like IEEE-SSCS are not flip-chip, but are wire-bonded into QFN packages; plus you get back some bare die that you can do with as you like. There will be nothing obstructing the photodiode. (1b) The photodiode has always been in the PDK; it's just that there is relatively little information about it other than a page of DRC rules. (2) In magic, you can use the "fillblock" layer to avoid any fill over the device (you will need to run the command

tech unlock *

first (I should have thought to add that to the photodiode device generator). I am very interested in seeing photodiode designs fabricated and measured so that we can get some useful information about the devices.

@Tim Edwards thank You for ultra fast response and very good news for us. We are also curious about the performance of the photo diodes