PREMA IC Drives White LEDs Out of One Battery Cell

PREMA Semiconductor announced the next IC in a family of 0.9V LED boost drivers, operating white LEDs from one battery cell. While the company’s PR4401 is best suited for LED currents of up to 20mA, the new PR4402 is capable of 40mA. The current is set by the inductor value, resulting in a low number of external components. Applications are pocket torches, key ring pendants or head lights and LCD back lighting in single-cell devices like MP3 players.

The one-cell battery operation is claimed to allow for the design of smaller and light weight products at lower cost. In multiple-cell operation of rechargeable batteries often one cell can be destroyed by a deep discharge. With the PR4401/4402 there is no more reason for using several battery cells or for implementing the classical light bulb. With one battery cell and depending on the application one inductor only as external component, a very small-sized circuitry can be realized with the PR4401/4402, both SOT23 packaged. The driven LED current is almost independent from the supply voltage, which guarantees a constant brightness even with a discharging battery.

PR4401 and PR4402 samples are available upon request.