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Kenneth Du
Product Marketing Engineer
Power Switches, Interface & Lighting
Texas Instruments
LEDs offer many advantages over traditional lighting
options. Understanding each LED function will enable
designs with higher efficiency, better reliability and
longer lifetimes.
2 LED animation
hardware and software engineers. While LEDs are used
across a breadth of applications, there are still similarities
LED animation drivers include features regarding their functionality within end equipment, and each
such as color mixing and brightness
function has common design considerations.
control to drive the most widely used
RGB LEDs. The four main functions of an LED include indication,
3
animation, illumination and backlighting, as shown below in
LED illumination Figure 1.
LED illumination uses high-power LEDs
or strings of LEDs to illuminate someone
or something.
4 LED backlighting
Backlight LED drivers enhance user
LED indication LED animation
experience across many display sizes
– extending battery life and reducing
board space.
Common LED Functions and LED Driver Design Considerations 2 October 2020
LED history and its first applications Design considerations
In the early 1960s, LEDs were invented and mainly used to LEDs are diodes, which are easy to turn on if forward-biased,
replace incandescent or neon indicator lamps and seven- but complex to design with a single method covering so
segment displays in expensive equipment, since the power many applications. The traditional design rule is to use
density was low and the cost extremely high. Continuous the power level of total LEDs in the system as a guide to
and intensive research into LED technology led to the select different LED drivers. However, as dimming capability
production of more efficient LEDs with different colors. In becomes a common requirement and the color mixing
1994, the invention of ultra-bright blue LEDs expedited of RGB and white LEDs improves the user experience,
the development of cost-effective white LEDs. Meanwhile, software control on top of LED driving makes it harder to
invisible wavelength LEDs extended from original IR to UV, find an appropriate solution. Thus, designers must consider
and modern LEDs began spanning the visible, UV and IR not just the power level but the topology, efficiency, dimming
wavelengths, with high efficient light output. method and control.
to which other smart devices in the household connect, As the most popular function, LED indicators are the easiest
including smart locks, video doorbells, thermostats, large to design. The indicators in the system usually just need
and small appliances, vacuum robots, and lighting systems; to turn on or off to indicate status, so applying a forward-
see Figure 2. In these applications, different power levels biased voltage on the LED and adding a current-limit
and color LEDs are used to indicate status, or for HMI, LCD resistor, as shown in Figure 3, is the most straightforward
backlighting or IR/white illumination. method. A mechanical or electronic switch (a transistor or
metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor [MOSFET])
can turn the LED on or off.
VLED
ILED
RL –
=
Common LED Functions and LED Driver Design Considerations 3 October 2020
Some types of equipment, like appliances, use several An LED animation driver is an upgrade from an LED indicator
indicators or seven-segment and dot-matrix displays to driver; its additional features include color mixing and
show information like time or battery power level. Designers brightness control to drive the most widely used RGB LEDs.
usually implement universal shift registers like 74HC164 or According to the RGB color model, adding RGB light in
74HC595. However, because the LED current-voltage curve various ways can produce a broad array of colors, as shown
is exponential, the LED current shifts easily, due to variations in Figure 5. For example, if each color (red, green and blue)
of LED supply voltage (VLED) and current limit resistor (RL). has 8-bit depth, all of the different combinations possible
These current shifts result in bad uniformity and shorter life can create 16.8 million colors. After generating a certain
spans, especially for battery-based applications where VLED color, applying a gradient change of the brightness can
varies a lot. A constant-current LED driving circuit, as shown achieve a “breathing” effect.
in Figure 4, generates a more accurate current through
all LEDs. The reference voltage (VREF) usually comes from
accurate voltage sources, making the LED current constant
regardless of the VLED variation.
VLED
ILED
VREF
+
-
REF
RS =
S Figure 5. A color ring produced by RGB color model.
Common LED Functions and LED Driver Design Considerations 4 October 2020
VCC VLED
Oscillator
PWM
dimming
and/or
analog
SRAM dimming
I2C, SPI,...
Color
Digital mixing
control
and
brightness
control
RREF setting
maximum current
RIREF GND
Protections
LED illumination stage’s topology and flexible dimming control are two main
considerations for choosing LED illumination drivers, as
LED illumination uses high-power LEDs or strings of LEDs
shown in Figure 7.
to illuminate someone or something. White LED illumination
is pervasive and one of the most efficient lighting sources, For the power stage, LED illumination usually uses LED
while IR LED illumination working with cameras makes the strings, so it’s necessary to compare the total forward
subject visible in the dark. UV LED illumination plays an voltage (VF) of the LED string and the input voltage (VIN) to
important role in the medical and chemical industries. choose the right topology. If the VF is higher than the VIN,
you will need a boost topology to generate enough voltage
A constant-current power regulator is a must for LED
to forward-bias the LED string. If the VF is lower than the VIN,
illumination because a high-power LED’s current may
you will need a buck topology to increase the total efficiency.
double with a voltage increase of only 10% – meaning that
Linear constant-current sources or sinks may also fit if VF is
there is a high possibility of damage to the LED. The power
close to, but slightly lower than, VIN.
VIN
For dimming control, analog dimming and PWM dimming
EN Power stage are still the main control methods.
DC/DC or linear
Analog dimming has a continuous output current and
is popular in camera-related applications such as video
Constant current sources/sinks
Common LED Functions and LED Driver Design Considerations 5 October 2020
For PWM dimming, the output current is not continuous, as Main FET dimming has the highest rise and fall times,
Figure 9 shows. In the LED current waveform, tr and tf are making it hard to achieve fast dimming and a high dimming
the rise and fall times in response to the PWM command, ratio. Series FET dimming can improve the dimming speed
which affects the dimming ratio and minimum pulse width. and ratio, while a shunt FET is the fastest solution for PWM
The rise and fall time varies for different PWM dimming dimming with the highest dimming ratio. Table 1 compares
methods, as shown in Figure 10, including main FET the dimming methods described so far.
dimming, series FET dimming and shunt FET dimming.
ILED
PWM
Full scale T
PWM dimming - main FET PWM dimming - series FET PWM dimming - shunt FET
Common LED Functions and LED Driver Design Considerations 6 October 2020
LED backlighting
LED backlighting is used for illumination purposes. It is common Global dimming enables the placement of one or several LED
for several white LED strings to backlight LCD displays, since strings at the edge of the LCD panels and uses a light guide to
LCDs are not self-luminous. While applications such as mobile disperse the light uniformly. This scheme is easy to accomplish
phones, notebooks, monitors and TVs all use different sized and is the most widely used solution today.
LCDs, design considerations for LED backlighting remain the Local dimming uses a full LED array to increase the contrast
same, focusing on efficiency and the dimming or contrast ratio. ratio by applying more individually-controlled zones behind the
A boost LED driver is usually applied to drive the LED strings. panel. With the breakthroughs in mini LEDs and corresponding
To generate the maximum luminance required, a larger LCD matrix drivers, local dimming is on its way to a prosperous
panel needs more LED strings and a higher LED count in series. future in applications that require an ultra-high contrast ratio.
Adding constant-current sinks will achieve higher accuracy
Looking to the future
between different LED strings.
Higher power density, higher efficiency and smaller package
High efficiency is very important for the backlight driver, which
sizes are enabling the implementation of LEDs in more use
means the product can achieve lower power consumption and
cases. At the same time, LED drivers are also optimized to meet
better thermal performance. High efficiency also extends battery
different requirements based on the four LED functions:
life for battery-powered applications. To achieve high efficiency,
the LED backlight driver needs a highly efficient power stage, • LED indicator drivers are becoming more integrated, with a
low quiescent current, a low headroom voltage for the constant- cost comparable to discrete transistor arrays.
current sinks and optimized external components. • LED animation drivers face higher channel-count challenges,
The contrast ratio is another key consideration in backlighting, while matrix drivers continue to be released to market, driving
especially for displays covering both indoor and outdoor use. hundreds of LEDs with a single chip.
A thermostat with a 7-inch LCD display may only need a • LED illumination drivers need faster dimming capabilities for
300-nit maximum luminance, with a dimming ratio less than applications like machine vision, along with higher power
500-to-1, but a fish finder that’s a similar size may need up to density and low electromagnetic interference.
3000-nit luminance and a dimming ratio of more than 10,000-
• LED backlight drivers are facing breakthroughs at the
to-1. Analog dimming can achieve a low dimming ratio, such
multilevel boost stage for extremely high efficiency in global
as 500-to-1, while a dimming ratio over 10,000-to-1 requires
dimming, while local dimming with matrix drivers provides a
high-resolution PWM dimming or hybrid dimming, which is a
higher contrast ratio.
combination of PWM and analog dimming.
Advanced LED drivers for the four main functions of an LED
Depending on the LED architecture, LED backlighting has two
will help resolve today’s challenges and bring LED applications
configurations: global dimming and local dimming.
to a new level.
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