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Electronic choke/ballast control IC for fluorescent tubes

Date: 21/08/2013
International Rectifier has made available 0.94US$ priced control IC for magnetic ballasts used in fluorescent lamps, which are also called as electronic chokes.

The IRS2538DS is available in a compact SO8 package offering high power factor without any external Power Factor Correction (PFC) circuit and does not require electrolytic capacitor at the input, this saves significant cost. IRS2538DS packs 600V half-bridge control circuit, bootstrap MOSFET and some protection features.

“As traditional magnetic ballasts continue to be phased-out of the marketplace due to their low efficiency, manufacturers are looking for an electronic replacement with equivalent reliability and low-cost,” said Tom Ribarich, Director of Lighting Systems and Applications, IR’s Energy Saving Products Business Unit. “The IRS2538D delivers all of the benefits of an electronic ballast solution such as high efficiency, small size, light weight, and no lamp flicker while additionally offering excellent reliability and cost efficiencies for an affordable, greener alternative to existing approaches,” he added.

The IRS2538DS supports preheat, ignition and running lamp modes, closed-loop lamp current control, fixed pre-heat time (2s typical), adaptive deadtime (0.5us to 1.5us typical), lamp insert auto-restart, micropower start-up (125uA) and an internal 15.6V Zener diode clamp on Vcc.

Priced at US $0.94 each in quantities of 10,000-units is available in production quantities immediately. The devices are lead free and RoHS compliant.

Editorial Product rating: * (Good)