LED drivers and their applications

Published:2012/3/19 21:21:00 Author:Ecco From:SeekIC

The lighting-emitting diodes (LEDs) are more efficient and smaller in size, have a substantially longer life, and allow considerably greater design freedom for improved aesthetics, and more. And they are widely used in automotive applications.

An LED driver requires a constant current to LEDs in order to produce consistent lighting in automotive application. Automotive applications for LED include interior lighting (such as dome, dash, and footwell lighting), indicator and "telltale" lights and infotainment backlighting as well as exterior (signaling) functions such as tail lights, turn signals, brake lights including CHMSL (center high-mount stop lamps), parking lights, side marker lights, fog lamps and daytime running lights (DRLs). A few car manufacturers have introduced LED headlamps on production models based on high-brightness (HB) LEDs.

In some cases, the capabilities of an LED driver can enable more than one application to be addressed with the same LEDs. With leading automotive headlamp manufacturers providing prototypes with HB-LEDs, almost all carmakers have displayed concept vehicles with LED headlights and it is predicted that several standard vehicles will have LED headlights this year.

LED drivers can be designed to offer a combination of series and parallel LED control. Devices with this capability are providing circuit designers the flexibility to control LEDs in different applications with a single driver rather than requiring different devices that increase layout work and qualification testing.

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