January 14, 2005 Cyberjaya Malaysia -- SiRES Labs says its new 3.125-Gbit/sec VCSEL driver, which consumes 166 mW (quad channel) of power, will save as much as 40 percent over similar products. The company recently launched its single- and quad-channel VCSEL driver in speeds of 3.125, 2.5, and 1.25 Gbits/sec, respectively, for use in backplanes, intra-system parallel links, OC-192 VSR SONET/SDH links, Fibre Channel, DVI links, and laser printers.
"With this very efficient power consumption feature, the need for heat sinks is eliminated or reduced, bringing about substantial cost saving advantages," said SiRES CEO Sean Murphy. "Also, with lower heat dissipation on board, components can be more densely packed without compromising on performance levels."
Among the key advantages the VCSEL drivers offer are the flexibility of selecting variable IBIAS and IMOD values -- programmable upper and lower threshold levels for VCSEL fault detection -- hence allowing the chip to be easily matched with third-party VCSELs. The integration of a temperature sensor enables the chip to be used in applications where temperature compensation is required without the need to use monitor photodiodes.
Other features include multi-standard differential inputs accepting LVDS, LVPECL, and CML formats and compatibility with 850-nm VCSELs. It has a modulation current of 12 mA and a bias current of 11 mA. The disable and enable times are 4 nsec and 17.7 nsec, respectively, and the transmitter ready (TXR) response time is 144 nsec. The components are available in bare die format.
Samples and evaluation kits are currently available.