Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Atmel Corp has announced the availability of its new ATR0885 laser diode driver IC for use in combined HD-DVD/Blu-ray, DVD, CD players and PC CD-ROM drives.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray are new disc standards which will offer more storage capacity than today's DVD standards. Since the new ATR0885 is available in very small packages, it is particularly suitable for small SLIM drives used in notebook computers, as well as for half-height drives used in desktop PCs and consumer DVD players. The IC is said to be the industry's first available product for such applications and enables an important factor for high-volume consumer products.
The IC contains three outputs, each of which can be used for either the connection of blue laser diodes with a wavelength of 405nm (HD-DVD/Blu-ray), DVD laser diodes with a wavelength of 780nm, or CD laser diodes with 650nm. Competing products only have outputs predetermined for the blue laser functionality, whereas the device lets the system designer freely select which of the three outputs shall be dedicated to blue laser functionality. This means the designer can chose the output optimally located in a specific design so that the connection lines are as short as possible. This is said to allow the creation of designs which are smaller and more cost-efficient.
Up to now, a HD-DVD/Blu-ray/DVD/CD system required the use of four devices: three oscillator chips and one transimpedance amplifier, whereas the device makes it possible to build a blue laser system with only one IC.
Blue laser diodes used for HD-DVD and Blu-ray systems need a voltage source which is capable of handling higher voltages than the 5V commonly used for DVD and CD laser diodes. Each of the device's three outputs has a separate voltage supply pin providing up to 8V.
For automatic power control, a transimpedance amplifier is integrated and supports all three output channels. The gain of each channel can be set separately by using three individual resistors.
An integrated oscillator reduces laser mode hopping. Using one external resistor, a frequency range from 200 to 500MHz can be set for all outputs. Three additional resistors allow a swing of up to 100mA (peak-to-peak) for each output separately. The oscillator can optionally be set in a spread-spectrum mode to reduce electro-magnetic interferences.
Samples of the ATR0885 are available now in very small QFN24 packages which are both Pb-free and green. Pricing starts at US$2.60 in quantities of 10k.
By: DocMemory
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