Effective tooling is essential for rapid innovation, yet traditional Electronic Design Automation (EDA) often hinders progress in emerging fields like photonics and quantum computing. Our extensive experience at leading institutions such as Google, PsiQuantum, HP, Juniper Networks, and Rockley Photonics revealed that commercial tools frequently fall short due to misaligned incentives. To address this gap, we developed open-source solutions, notably GDSFactory, which enable researchers and practitioners to directly participate in shaping the future of the tool. Though these tools served us well in our own day jobs, we came to the conclusion that an open-core business would be necessary to support these tools in the long term and make them a viable commercial alternative. This talk highlights our journey, key achievements, and future directions in advancing photonics and quantum technologies.

Troy is an experienced engineer in the field of design automation. He graduated MIT in 2010 and worked for 5 years at Samsung Electro-Mechanics on the simulation and optimization of novel fluid dynamic bearings, a topic on which he holds multiple patents. Since then, he has pivoted his focus to photonics. He has spent over 10 years streamlining the development cycle for photonics-based transceivers, wearable sensors, and more, at companies such as Aurrion, Juniper Networks, and Rockley Photonics. Recently he has founded DoPlayDo, Inc., which aims to accelerate the development of advanced integrated circuits using open source tools, such as GDSFactory. He is based in Fujieda, Japan.