Dual driver upgrades optical disc drives

Intersil is claiming a breakthrough in dual output laser drivers for the rapidly emerging dual DVD/CD writer optical drive market.

Intersil is claiming a breakthrough in dual output laser drivers for the rapidly emerging dual DVD/CD writer optical drive market.

The new EL6119C is a dual laser driver that enables optical disk drive manufacturers to quickly develop a combined DVD/CD dual-writer drive from existing CD writer drive designs.

The EL6119C is pin compatible with the EL6219C and provides dual outputs (one for the CD laser and one for the DVD laser) for industry-standard controller interfaces.

The EL6119C is positioned for both medium-performance (4x DVD and 32x CD writer specifications) and faster combined 8x DVD, 48x CD laser driver products.

The EL6119C is part of Intersil's portfolio of laser driver ICs that provide increased write-speed performance (up to 48x CD and 8x DVD) with higher levels of system integration.

"The EL6119C increases the breadth of our DVD/CD dual-writer products by offering original equipment manufacturers an opportunity to quickly bring a dual-writer product to market using Intersil's existing controller IC architectures", said Stephen P Sacarisen, Director of Strategic Marketing for Intersil's Elantec Optical Products.

This new dual four-channel (one read and three write levels) laser driver provides improved current control to both the CD and DVD laser diodes.

Each channel has a separate enable pin for the DVD or CD driver output.

This simplifies control and gives 100% compatibility with existing single channel designs.

The EL6119C incorporates two separate high frequency modulation (HFM) oscillators for up to 500MHz and 100mA, peak to peak, per output.

The HFMs reduce laser-noise and read-noise error rates.

Current outputs of the three write channels are 200, 100 and 100mA, enabling CD-R speeds up to 32x in compliance with the Orange Specification Standard for CD-R and CD-R/W write strategies and all DVD formats.

The EL6119C is available now in a 32-pin leadless plastic package in sample quantities.

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