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Date: 16th May 2011

LED Driver IC for automotive head lamps and DRLs

ROHM CO., LTD., has developed the BD8381EFV-M single-chip LED driver for use with automotive LED headlamps and daytime running lights (DRLs). BD8381EFV-M incorporates PWM function for use with DRLs. ROHM began shipping samples of the new product in April (sample pricing: ¥400/part) and plans to begin mass production with an initial monthly volume of 50,000 parts in July 2011. The company plans to split production into a pre-process handled by ROHM Wako Co., Ltd., (Okayama Prefecture) and a post-process handled by ROHM Integrated Systems (Thailand) Co., Ltd., (Thailand).

Automakers have been gradually switching to LED lighting for automotive headlamps, and LED-based headlamps are expected to eventually account for most of the market due to the higher efficiency and longer service life promised by the technology. Increasingly, manufacturers are equipping their vehicles with LED-driven DRLs to ensure an optimal level of safety and visibility, and LED headlamps and DRLs are widely expected to become a fixture of automotive equipment specifications. At the current time, use of LED headlamps is limited to certain portions of the market such as the luxury segment, and automakers and headlamp manufacturers have used general-purpose LED driver LSIs or designs based on discrete components, necessitating the inclusion of a separate driver circuit when equipping the vehicle with DRLs. ROHM said it launched an early effort to develop a dedicated LSI for use with LED headlamps based on its forecast of the future adoption of this technology, leading to the development of an LSI incorporating all the functionality needed to serve as an LED driver that would be used with headlamps. The BD8381EFV-M provides PWM light modulation without a microcontroller by incorporating a built-in oscillator circuit for use with DRLs, which are beginning to enter into widespread use particularly in Europe and the United States, where automakers are pioneering their use. The part also offers a range of protective functionality to detect headlamp faults such as LED short and open states to better meet the automotive market's need for a high level of reliability. An absolute maximum voltage of 50 V gives the product sufficient dielectric strength to withstand battery voltage fluctuations.

Principal features of the BD8381EFV-M LED driver LSI for automotive headlamps:

1. Input voltage range of 5 V to 30 V
2. Built-in step-up/step-down current mode DC/DC controller
3. Built-in CR timer for PWM light modulation
4. Support for PWM and linear light modulation
5. Built-in protective functions (UVLO, OVP, TSD, OCP, SCP, LED open detection, LED short detection)


 
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