Hello All,
Disclaimer: I don't often work with laser diodes. So please try to restrict the number of "Duh!" statements to 2-3 per post :-)
After perusing the offerings of the usual contenders such as AD, TI, LTC I am wondering whether there is a better solution to drive a >120mA laser diode. Sure, the ADN2830 can do that but burning off a lot of dissipation in those tiny 5mm LFCSP packages gives me the goose pimples. ONET and most comms drivers seem to be too wimpy at 100mA or less.
We need to control the current from our circuitry but not at more than a few hundred Hz rate for swings between 90%-100%. It's going to be a loop so linearity of the control mechanism isn't too important. Noise is critical though.
Are there larger and widely available laser driver chips? Maybe in SO packages?
Of course, my dream would be to have the TEC controller right in there with it. Don't know why that's not done yet but one has to have dreams. The ADN8831 looks alright for TEC except for the fact that it does PWM and that could interfere with our low noise application. Comes with an eval board which is nice. If anyone knows a better TEC controller, maybe with the bridge FETs already in there, please let me know. If it doesn't contain its own PID loop we could probably live with that.