Technology Trend of Automotive LED Driver IC

For automotive LED driver IC, such as typical automotive LED IC driver based on single LED or multiple LEDs, one DC/DC converter will be needed to exactly provide fixed LED current for united brightness and color saturation. The converter must also protect LED from the damage by big voltage changes during driving. The design of DC/DC converter must be optimized according to the amount and type of LED as well as its functions in different illumination applications like LED headlamp, LED tail light, LED turn signal light, reading light, dashboard backlight and CID.


However, LED driver IC affects the quality of DC/DC converter, so automotive driver IC is different from non-automotive products in reliability, safety, EMI (electromagnetic interference), heat dissipation and cost. Due to higher requirements, the challenge of automotive LED driver IC is also harder. For example, concerning reliability, automotive LED driver IC should ensure system reliability rather than pursue chip reliability. Equipped driver IC with LED open/short circuit and overcurrent & overheat protection functions so as to ensure driver stability. As for safety, it is quite important for LED driver IC to require error detection in operation and the reliability of data transmission structure. Regarding EMI, as LED driver IC should lower the complexity of EMI solution and circuit structure also need to be simplified, LED driver IC with integrated multi-functions plays a major factor.