Yesterday, we talked about Atmel microcontrollers (MCUs) being used to produce warm and inviting light without flickering or humming (fluorescent ballast). Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at Atmel’s family of general illumination LED drivers which are designed to facilitate intelligent system control for multiple LED parallel arrays.
Atmel’s general illumination LED drivers are ideal for a number of applications, including street lighting, tunnel lights, parking garage lights, fluorescent tube replacements, solar/off-grid lighting, mood and architectural lighting, as well as other general lighting applications.
“With an adaptive power scheme and correlated color temperature (CCT) compensation circuitry, engineers will be well equipped to meet their requirements for power-efficient, high-performance lighting products,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces.
“Lighting OEMs can use white, RGB and white with red LEDs to achieve the desired white gamut and color control, while Atmel LED drivers are capable of setting an LED current to the desired peak and white point. Devices such as Atmel’s MSL2100 can also be used to individually program each string current to its targeted peak.”
Dimming is achieved by PWM or decreasing the LED constant current. Depending on the desired lighting requirements, one to 16 LED strings are employed in solid-state lighting (SSL) applications. Plus, external NFETs enables an application to sink from 350mA to 1A per string, all while supporting high-voltage LED supplies such as 260VDC.
“Atmel’s Adaptive Power Scaling technology results in significant power savings by automatically adjusting the LED supply to the lowest voltage to maintain regulation across all LED strings,” the engineering rep added.
“Atmel LED drivers offer two or three efficiency optimizers for each color power supply. These optimizers minimize power use while maintaining LED current accuracy, allowing up to 16 interconnected devices to automatically negotiate the optimum power supply voltages.”
Lastly, Atmel’s newest LED drivers feature correlated color temperature (CCT) compensation circuitry, making it easier for engineers to precisely maintain a desired CCT over an entire LED lamp temperature range.
Interested in learning more? A detailed list of Atmel’s LED drivers is available here.
Atmel | Bits & Pieces 