A Second-Order Feedforward Optical Power Control Scheme for Automotive VCSEL Drivers

This letter presents a feedforward optical power control scheme for automotive 150-Mb/s vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) transmitters. The bias current exhibits a second-order dependence upon temperature, while the modulation current is provided with a piecewise linear compensation of temperature variations. The resulting VCSEL modulation performance was analyzed in detail and experimentally validated. Over the harsh automotive temperature range from -40°C to 105°C, a high extinction ratio was maintained despite very tight tolerances on pulsewidth distortion (PWD); the variation of the emitted optical power was measured to be less than 1.2 dB, while maintaining an extinction ratio better than 12 dB and a PWD less than ±2%.