Patent ID: 7975493

Claim:
A thermoelectric cooler system for controlling inrush current in an optical transceiver, the system comprising: a power supply configured to supply power to a thermoelectric cooler that adjusts a temperature of a laser; a thermoelectric cooler controller that controls the thermoelectric cooler; a processor programmed to perform the following steps according to a timing schedule that is set to prevent current in the thermoelectric cooler from exceeding a threshold current: initialize the thermoelectric cooler system during power on of the thermoelectric cooler system by at least ensuring that a first signal outputted by the processor turns off the power supply of the thermoelectric cooler system; activate a second signal, a third signal, and a fourth signal after the processor finishes a boot up process, the second signal turning on the thermoelectric cooler controller, the third signal determining a target temperature of the laser, the fourth signal controlling the maximum voltage across the thermoelectric cooler of the thermoelectric cooler system; assert the first signal to turn the power supply on and sampling a fifth signal from a thermistor of the thermoelectric cooler system, wherein the processor sets the third signal to be the same as the fifth signal such that substantially no current is required by the thermoelectric cooler; turn on the fourth signal to apply the maximum voltage across the thermoelectric cooler and incrementing or decrementing the third signal to ramp a temperature to an operating value; enter a steady state once an actual temperature of the laser reaches, or is within a predetermined threshold of the target temperature.