LED DESIGN FORUM: Driver IC design ensures optimum performance of LED backlighting (MAGAZINE)

LEDs had their first backlighting successes in small, battery-powered devices, such as mobile phone handsets, thanks to their brightness and high efficiency. Now these and other performance characteristics are likely to make them successful for backlighting computer displays and televisions as well, where they may ultimately replace cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) that currently serve this purpose.

The potential advantages LEDs have over CCFLs are formidable: they consume less power, last about five times longer, are more efficient, can reduce display thickness, are dimmable in fine steps, use low-voltage drivers and do not contain mercury and other hazardous substances as do CCFLs. However, it’s important to remember that behind every successful LED-enabled backlighting application are driver ICs that optimize the performance of the LEDs, protect them from a wide range of potentially damaging scenarios and ensure consistent visual quality over the life of the display.

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This article was published in the January/February 2009 issue of LEDs Magazine.

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