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Ongoing improvement of Power LEDs has rapidly increased the consumer acceptance, economic and environmental advantages of Solid State Lighting compared to traditional incandescent and fluorescent lighting. Solid State Lighting requires capable and efficient electronics driver circuits for successful implementation
Melexis has now extended its LED driver family with a new Power LED driver optimized for performance, flexibility, robustness and cost. MLX10803 is designed for automotive interior and exterior applications but can generically be used in all high volume single or Power LED array applications that require temperature compensation, low noise and high efficiency at the lowest possible system cost.
The MLX10803 is a highly adaptable circuit allowing superior protection and intelligent features compared to existing solutions. It includes several reference inputs designed to allow external sensors temperature compensation in order to guarantee a constant light output or light level and to protect both LEDs and surrounding circuitry against overheating. The MLX10803 operates normally from DC supply of 6V to 32V. A minimum of external components can be added to allow the IC to operate on 115 or 220V, 50 or 60 cycle AC. It can efficiently drive a virtually unlimited number of High Intensity LEDs in the range of 1 to 1000 Watt with appropriate external discrete power devices.
MLX10803 offers superior performance in temperature compensation and intelligence such as dimming and soft increase of light level at start up. Typical efficiency rates vary between 70% for single LED applications and more than 95% for LED array applications.
All Melexis LED driver ICs are qualified according to the automotive ISO/TS16949 standard which explains their robustness. The EMI behaviour of the entire module is optimized by randomizing the switching frequency. Other illustrations of this robustness are the ICs intrinsic load dump protection up to 80V, operating temperature range from -40°C to 125°C.
Roger Alm, product marketing manager of Melexis LED driver products, claims: “any designer using MLX10803 to create a switching LED driver can be confident that there is no other competing circuit that is significantly cheaper, has less noise or is more efficient or robust.”
