Cypress Announces New HB LED Intelligent Lighting Controller Family

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. introduced what it claims is a complete design solution for high-brightness (HB) LED intelligent lighting systems. Cypress’s new EZ-Color™ family of HB LED controllers is supported by PSoC Express™, which the company claims is the industry’s first embedded visual design tool. It is said that engineers can simply input the selected LEDs, choose a color, and the combination of the unique EZ-Color architecture and PSoC Express software delivers a complete design solution for growing applications such as architectural lighting, general signage, rechargeable flashlights, entertainment lighting, emergency vehicle lighting and more.

Today, LED design requires a complex set of calculations to deliver consistent color. The two biggest problems that HB LED engineers face today are having to account for differing LED performance specifications based on manufacturing bins and the LEDs’ degradation (such as output flux, wavelength etc.) over different temperatures. According to the company, with PSoC Express, designers simply select a color from a gamut presented on-screen. Pre-loaded manufacturers’ bin specifications and temperature feedback algorithms are automatically applied to the selected design and programmed into the EZ-Color Controller. This can, it is said, save anywhere from weeks to months of design time for a complex design.

"The EZ-Color solution truly presents a new design paradigm for HB LED systems," said Norm Taffe, Executive Vice President of Cypress’s Consumer and Computations Division. "The combination of our programmable silicon expertise and the PSoC Express design tool makes designing with LEDs much simpler and faster, significantly speeding time to market for our customers."

In addition to ease-of-design advantages, EZ-Color Controllers can support up to 16 LED channels. The additional channels can mean a savings of dozens or even hundreds of controllers in very large designs, saving on design complexity, power consumption and board space. The EZ-Color controllers are also powered by Cypress patent pending PrISM™ (Precise Illumination Signal Modulation) technology. The PrISM modulation technology is claimed to significantly reduce low-frequency flicker and radiated electro-magnetic interference (EMI)-common problems with HB LED designs. Designers also have the flexibility to add additional functionality to the EZ-Color controllers, including battery charging, motor control and other features.

The EZ-Color family is supported by the CY3261A-RGB Evaluation Kit. The evaluation kit showcases EZ-Color’s flexibility and ease of use for high-brightness LED color mixing applications and employs temperature compensation for consistent color. Included with the evaluation kit is an interactive graphical interface enabling quick color mixing via a CIE diagram or by directly controlling each HB LED. The kit is available for US$149.

The EZ-Color family includes devices that drive up to four (CY8CLED04), eight (CY8CLED08) and 16 (CY8CLED16) LEDs. All devices are available with the CY8CLED04 priced under US$4.00 in high volumes.