Contributors & Integrators

MIT Photonics Lab
Lightmatter
Lumos Networks
NVIDIA PhAI
imec
Stanford Nanofab
Rockley Photonics
Intel Photonics
MIT Photonics Lab
Lightmatter
Lumos Networks
NVIDIA PhAI
imec
Stanford Nanofab
Rockley Photonics
Intel Photonics
Open Source · Apache 2.0 · v0.9.4

Computation at the
speed of light.
Open source.

Route tensor operations through silicon photonic waveguides. Replace copper bottlenecks with Mach-Zehnder interferometer meshes that process at laser pulse speeds. Built by quantum optics researchers and ML engineers.

GitHub Stars
4,812
Star on GitHub
photon — zsh
Matrix Multiply Latency
0.8ms
vs 47ms GPU · 58× faster
Photon
0.8ms
A100 GPU
47ms
Contributors
247
QO
ML
PH
IC
+

postdocs · infra eng · CTOs

Enterprise Access

Custom compiler pipelines, silicon co-design support, and SLA-backed inference.

Request Compiler Access
Feature Matrix / Stack Layer 1–3

Every layer of the photonic stack,
from silicon to inference.

MZIMZIθ₁θ₂
core · hardwareStar

Programmable Mach-Zehnder Meshes

Reconfigurable 2D arrays of balanced MZI splitters implement arbitrary unitary transforms. Phase shifts set via thermo-optic or electro-optic actuators in <1μs.

U · x = y
core · computeStar

Optical Matrix Multiplication

O(1) depth matrix-vector products encoded in waveguide amplitude and phase. 512×512 multiplications at 200 GOPS/W.

ONNXphotoncompilerPhoto-nic IRmodelmesh cfg
compilerStar

ONNX-to-Photonic Compiler

Import any ONNX model graph. The compiler decomposes linear layers into MZI mesh configurations and emits a photonic IR for hardware or simulation.

phase noise modelσ_φ = 0.008 rad
simulationStar

Coherent Noise Modeling

First-principles noise model including phase error, insertion loss, and crosstalk. Calibrate against real hardware measurements or use default fab PDK parameters.

T1T2T3Δφ correction±0.002 rad @ 50°C
runtimeStar

Thermal Drift Compensation

Real-time closed-loop correction for thermo-optic drift using on-chip photodetectors. Maintains phase accuracy to ±0.002 rad at 50°C ambient.

SOI · SiN · InP
layoutStar

Waveguide Routing Engine

Automated placement and routing for silicon photonic dies. DRC-clean layouts from logical netlist with support for SOI, SiN, and InP platforms.

quick start

5 lines to photonic inference

import photon
from photon.compiler import ONNXCompiler
 
compiler = ONNXCompiler("model.onnx")
mesh = compiler.to_mzi()
result = mesh.run(x)
Read the docs
Architecture / Stack Layers 1–5

Full-stack photonic compute.
Hardware to model, no gaps.

Scroll through each layer. Each one is independent and replaceable — swap your hardware target without touching the compiler.

05

Model Deployment

Inference runtime · REST API · batch scheduler

Deploy photonic models via a unified runtime that handles device allocation, batching, and fallback to GPU simulation.

04

Photonic IR

Unitary decomposition · phase encoding · mesh scheduling

Intermediate representation that maps linear algebra operations to physical MZI configurations with thermal and fabrication constraints.

03

ONNX Compiler Frontend

Graph partitioning · linear layer extraction · quantization

Ingests standard ONNX graphs, identifies photonic-acceleratable subgraphs, and emits Photonic IR for downstream hardware targeting.

02

Simulation & Noise Engine

Coherent noise · thermal drift · fabrication variance · FDTD

High-fidelity physical simulation with per-fab PDK parameters. Enables training noise-aware models before silicon tapeout.

01

Hardware Abstraction Layer

MZI driver · phase actuator · photodetector · PCIe bridge

Vendor-neutral HAL exposing phase control, readback, and calibration APIs. Supports Lightmatter Envise, Lumos P1, and custom research chips.

00
Silicon Photonic Die · SOI 220nm · SiN 300nm · InP 500nm
Benchmarks / 512×512 Matrix Multiply · FP32

58× faster. 875× more efficient.
Measured, not estimated.

Benchmark: 512×512 FP32 matrix multiply, batch=1, warm cache. GPU figures from published NVIDIA specs. Photon measured on Lightmatter Envise eval board.
Platform
Latency
Throughput
Power
Efficiency
Photon v0.9 (MZI-512)
photon
0.8ms
200 GOPS
1.2W
166.7GOPS/W
NVIDIA A100 (CUDA)
gpu
47ms
77.6 GOPS
400W
0.2GOPS/W
NVIDIA H100 (CUDA)
gpu
31ms
133 GOPS
700W
0.2GOPS/W
Google TPU v4
tpu
22ms
275 GOPS
170W
1.6GOPS/W
Lightmatter Envise
photon
1.4ms
160 GOPS
2.1W
76.2GOPS/W
Photon achieves 166.7 GOPS/W — 875× better energy efficiency than A100
Early Access Program

Request Compiler Access.
Before the waitlist closes.

Enterprise support includes a dedicated compiler engineer, custom PDK integration, latency SLA for production inference, and quarterly silicon co-design reviews.

Compiler deployed within 48h of approval
NDA-protected silicon co-design pipeline
Direct access to core compiler team
Custom benchmark suite for your workloads
MC
JL
AK
23 enterprises on early access · 6 silicon co-designs in progress

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