High performance laser diode driver for automotive heads-up displays

Intersil have announced the ISL78365 laser diode driver for automotive HUD systems. The highly integrated device pulses four high intensity lasers up to 750mA for projecting full-HD colour video onto the windshield at nearly twice the current of competitive solutions. The driver’s higher current and faster switching speed enables HUDs with high resolution, high colour-depth and high frame-rate projections. Laser HUDs are the latest innovation in advanced driver assistance systems. A vehicle’s HUD keeps drivers focused on the road, safely providing speed, warning signals and other vital vehicle and navigation information on the windshield directly in the driver’s line of sight. The new generation of augmented reality laser HUDs offer near-zero latency and a wide field of view. They overlay additional real-time information such as traffic signs and a planned turning lane, virtually painting arrows and lines on the road ahead to make navigation directions obvious and easy to follow. The quad-channel device is a complete solution for driving lasers in the scanned-MEMS laser projection systems being deployed in next generation autos. It is the industry’s only laser driver with a fourth channel for supporting a wide variety of laser diode configurations, allowing system designers to achieve the desired brightness and sharp, rich colours with high contrast. It provides sub-1.5ns rise and fall times for faster switching speed than competitive devices, resulting in high frame rate, HD color video. The device also offers 10-bit color and 10-bit scale resolution to support a wide variety of contrast levels for each driver channel. And its flexible synchronous parallel video interface supports pixel rates up to 150MHz or 1900 pixels per line. The Idynamic power management optimises the laser-diode power supply and offers three power saving modes for improved efficiency and reduced power dissipation to meet system thermal requirements. The programmable multi-pulse return to zero (RTZ) feature reduces speckling, and the device’s wettable flank QFN package simplifies integration into compact laser projection HUDs. “The ISL78365 offers carmakers the high drive capability, switching speed and colour video accuracy that’s enabling advanced laser heads-up displays for today’s luxury vehicles and tomorrow’s mid-range car models,” said Philip Chesley, senior vice president of Precision Products at Intersil.