High-Speed Low-Power 4 Channel Laser Diode Driver for Pico-Projector Application

This work presents the design of a 4-channel integrated laser diode driver (LDD) fabricated in 160 nm BCD technology for a low-power pico-projector application based on micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) micro-mirrors. The embedded 10-bit current DAC known as video DAC, can produce 300MHz sharp current pulses with 1ns rise/fall time, less than 7% overshoot, 3-4ns settling time while the full-scale range (FSR) is also programmable through a static 10-bit current DAC, known as scale DAC, in the range of 160uA up to 160mA. These performances are guaranteed thanks to the novel active bootstrap presented in this paper. Additionally, a low frequency DAC is embedded to provide the threshold current required to bias laser diode above its threshold current depending on the temperature and aging influence.