Developer of digital power supply control ICs, iWatt has rolled out the iW7032 LED backlight driver that can power a maximum of 32 LEDs. The LED backlight driver features the company’s digital adaptive switching technology that decreases power consumption and thermal overhead.
The driver also has MOSFETs that reduce form factors and component count for convenient integration into LED televisions.
The adaptive switching technology addresses the thermal issues of driving a large quantity of LEDs. It identifies the mismatch of the LEDs’ fluctuating forward voltages and makes appropriate adjustments. This enables decreasing the heat generated, reduces the amount of wasted power and enables a single IC to drive many LED strings. iWatt’s Senior VP of the DC/DC group stated that the LED driver has overcome the thermal issues of driving LEDs and has made a significant contribution towards reducing expenses for the backlighting industry.
The driver supports three pulse-width modulation methodologies that can be utilized to control brightness. The LED driver offers three kinds of dimming control modes. The three-dimensional control mode delivers the brightness and current, which is required for three-dimensional images. The scanning mode lessens the ghosting and flicker problems to decrease motion blur whereas the local dimming mode switches off the backlight in dark regions and leads to enhanced contrast ratio and deeper black levels. The driver also incorporates LED open and over-temperature protection during operation and LED failure and over-temperature protection at startup.