- 11 April 2006 -

Industry-first read-only laser diode driver IC for HD-DVD/Blu-ray players

Atmel Corporation has announced 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
significantly 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 ATR0885 is the industry's first available
product for such applications and enables outstanding
cost-effectiveness, an important factor for high-volume consumer
products.

The ATR0885 contains three outputs, each of which can be used for
either the connection of blue laser diodes with a wavelength of 405 nm
(HD-DVD/Blu-ray), DVD laser diodes with a wavelength of 780 nm, or CD
laser diodes with 650 nm. Competing products only have outputs
predetermined for the blue laser functionality, whereas the ATR0885
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 allows the
creation of designs which are smaller and more cost-efficient while
providing high performance.

Up to now, a cost-efficient HD-DVD/Blu-ray/DVD/CD system required the
use of four devices: three oscillator chips and one transimpedance
amplifier, whereas the ATR0885 makes it possible to build an extremely
cost-efficient 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. To meet this demand, each
of the ATR0885'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 500 MHz can be set
for all outputs. Three additional resistors allow a swing of up to 100
mA (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 2.60 US$ in
quantities of 10k.

Product information:

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=3893

http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/devices.asp?family_id=619