Patent ID: 7492686

Claim:
A laser driver system that provides flexible multipulse strategies for use when writing marks on a medium, wherein each mark has a mark-length, wherein each mark is written using a first pulse which defines a starting edge of the mark, a last pulse which defines an ending edge of the mark, and zero, one or more multipulses between the first and last pulses, and wherein when marks for a plurality of different mark-lengths are written using one or more multipulses between the first pulse and the last pulse, the one or more multipulses can have different timing parameters than the first pulse and the last pulse, the laser driver system comprising: a plurality of multipulse location registers dedicated to storing multipulse location information; wherein each mark-length, of a plurality of different mark-lengths that are written using at least one multipulse, is mapped to one or more bit location within said multipulse location registers, such that a unique multipulse execution strategy can be defined for each mark-length of the plurality of different mark-lengths; wherein each bit location within said multipulse location registers can contain a first type of bit or a second type of bit, and wherein said first type of bit indicates where to execute a multipulse, and said second type of bit indicates where to not execute a multipulse; wherein the maximum number of multipulses between the first and last pulses of a mark having a mark-length greater than 3T is equal to the mark-length of the mark minus three; and wherein N-3 bit locations of said multipulse location registers are mapped to each mark-length that is between 4T and 11T in length, inclusive, and no bit locations of said multipulse location registers are mapped to mark-lengths of 3T or less, where N specifies a mark-length.