Industry's Smallest, Most Efficient Laser Firing System ICs are Now Available in Production Quantities

­Silanna Semiconductor, a global provider of high-performance mixed-signal solutions, today announced its FirePower™ laser firing system ICs for smaller, more efficient LiDAR and rangefinder applications are available in production quantities. 

These devices have been developed to significantly reduce power consumption, system size, BOM cost and design complexity versus other laser driver technologies. 

The SL2001 and SL2002 are the first laser firing system ICs to combine resonant capacitor charging and high-current laser diode firing on a single device. This eliminates multiple external discrete components and inefficient conversion phases. 

For example, using the SL2001 with a 400 W quad edge-emitting laser (EEL) module can reduce a laser system's footprint by 80% (from 400 mm2 to 80 mm2).

Both the SL2001 and SL2002 are housed in a 14-pin 3.5 mm2 package. They offer a Vin to resonant capacitor charging efficiency of up to 85% and can be used with both EEL and VCSELs (vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers). 

The SL2001 has been created for automotive-grade LiDAR and delivers sub-2 ns FWHM laser pulses as well as a peak power output of 1000 W when running from a 3 to 24 V supply. The SL2002 is designed for handheld and battery-operated systems using a 2.8 to 5.5 V supply to deliver a 100 W pulse with a 1 MHz pulse repetition frequency.

“There is a huge need to integrate laser-based measurement into an array of applications, from automotive LiDAR to sports, hunting, industrial, logistics and consumer systems,” said Ahsan Zaman, Product Marketing Director at Silanna Semiconductor. “In all these applications, engineers need to reduce size, power loss, system complexity and system cost. We’ve had an incredible response to previews, so we’re delighted to have moved into full production.”

Firepower specification sheets and further information on the SL2001 and SL2002 laser driver ICs are all available from the Silanna FirePower home page.

Firepower evaluation kits and production ICs are available now through DigiKey.