New Industry Products

Exar Releases 2A LED Driver In A Single Chip Solution

February 04, 2008 by Jeff Shepard

Exar Corp. has released the SP7600 LED driver capable of driving high power LEDs up to 2A. The SP7600 is a single chip switching buck LED driver with an integrated 100mΩ MOSFET in a thermally enhanced SO-8 package. With a 4.5 to 29V operating range this LED driver can support most retail and architectural lighting systems which typically use 12 or 24V power sources. New consumer electronics devices can also find a use for this high current LED driver, such as the latest LED compact projectors.

"The SP7600 is the highest current monolithic LED driver on the market and is designed to meet the needs of the latest high current LEDs such as the latest 1.5A Luxeon K2," said Jon Cronk, Director, Power Management Marketing. "The monolithic SP7600 is Exar’s second is a series of LED driver products targeted at the architectural and general lighting markets."

Both PWM dimming up to 1kHz, and analog dimming are supported by the SP7600. With a 0.2V feedback, power dissipation in the current sense resistor is minimized resulting in efficiency peaking at 95%, and the 1.2MHz operating frequency allows for a minimal footprint design which fits in the same board space as a 1.5A Luxeon K2 and it’s heat sink. Operation at 1.2MHz at the maximum input voltage of 29V can be a challenge for many buck regulators but with a guaranteed minimum on-time of 100ns the SP7600 can easily convert from 29V to the 4V across the LED. There is also an adjustable peak current limit control to protect the internal switch in the case of a fault condition.

Samples of the SP7600 are available now. The operating range is -40 to +85°C temperature range. In 1k piece quantities the SP7600 is $1.49.