Silanna Semiconductor ICs for LiDAR and rangefinders integrate charging and firing on a single chip to cut the footprint by 80% and power losses by 70%

The Silanna Semiconductor FirePower™ laser firing system ICs have been developed for smaller, more efficient LiDAR and rangefinder applications and are available in production quantities.

These devices have been developed to significantly reduce power consumption, system size, BOM cost, and design complexity versus other laser driver technologies.

The SL2001 and SL2002 are laser firing system ICs that combine resonant capacitor charging and high-current laser diode firing on a single device. This eliminates multiple external discrete components and inefficient conversion phases.

For example, using the SL2001 with a 400 W quad edge-emitting laser (EEL) module can reduce a laser system’s footprint by 80% (from 400 mm² to 80 mm²).

Both the SL2001 and SL2002 are housed in a 14-pin 3.5 mm² package. They offer a Vin to resonant capacitor charging efficiency of up to 85% and can be used with both EEL and VCSELs (vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers).

The SL2001 has been created for automotive-grade LiDAR and delivers sub-2 ns FWHM laser pulses as well as a peak power output of 1,000 W when running from a 3 V to 24 V supply. The SL2002 is designed for handheld and battery-operated systems using a 2.8 V to 5.5 V supply to deliver a 100 W pulse with a 1 MHz pulse repetition frequency.

SL2001 and SL2002 evaluation kits (EVKs) feature wide-band gap semiconductors from EPC. EPC GaN devices are known for extremely high efficiencies in a small package. Combining the EPC GaN with the integrated, high-performance laser firing systems from Silanna, which include charging and high-current laser diode firing in a single bumped package, ensures the smallest size-per-watt designs for TOF applications.