A Novel Technique of Driving Light-Emitting-Diode (LED)

Teng Kong Leong

INTRODUCTION
Light-Emitting-Diode (LED) is a device that requires a constant DC
current across it in order to produce a light at certain wavelength.
It is straight-forward to power LED from DC system but not from AC
system. In AC system, a converter is required such as AC-DC switching
power supply to convert the incoming AC to constant DC current. With
AC-DC switching power supply will introduce complexity and used of
short lifetime electronic components.
In order to solve these issues
Eurolicht has a novel technique with less complexity and eliminate the
short lifetime electronic components; hence, longer lifetime solidstate-lighting products.

OPERATION
Conventional AC-DC switching power supply will convert the incoming AC,
110VAC or 230VAC 50/60Hz, to constant DC current in order to drive the
LED. With our novel technique different string of LED is switched on
and off based on the incoming AC line switching. Figure 1 illustrates
the block diagram of the driver.

HV LED

Regulator

HV LED

HV LED

HV LED

Channel 1

&
Channel 2

Control Circuit
Current
Sense

Channel 3

Current
Sense

Channel 4

Current
Sense

Current
Sense

Figure 1

The regulator integrated circuit will monitor the incoming AC line

regardless of frequency 50Hz or 60Hz and switch the LED on and off

according to the LED total forward voltage per strings.

When the
rectified AC line voltage reaches a certain level, an internal
reference and regulator starts to supply power to the internal
circuits.
Upon power up, all current channels are ready to sink LED
current and will drive the LED as long as the rectified AC line voltage
is higher or adequate headroom compared to the total strings voltage.
As the rectified AC line voltage increases, each LED channel current
linearly increases up to the preset level and remain at that level till
the rectified AC line voltage level more than the total forward voltage
of the following LED strings.
Figure 2 illustrates the current
transition as the rectified AC line voltage increases.

300V
264V
250V
220V
200V

40
mA

176V
150V

40
mA

I4

132V

I2

I2

88V
50V
44V

I3

I3

100V

I1

I1

Figure 2
According to Figure 2, there are 4 groups or strings of LED connected
to 4 channels on the regulator IC.
Group 1 will turn on when the
rectified AC line voltage level more than 88V, follows by Group 2 at
176V, Group 3 at 220V, and Group 4 at 264V.

The current across the LED per string is adjustable via current sense
resistor which is feedback to the regulator IC.
There are multiple
configurations of connecting the LED to the regulator IC depending on
requirement that one try to achieve.

Power Quality: Power Factor & THD

Despite solid-state-lighting (SSL) high luminous efficacy and future

replacement of traditional lighting, power quality of SSL has been much
less compelling story.
Power quality standards are being considered
for SSL products to obtain ENEGRY STAR certification.
Due to this,
most of LED driver IC maker started to integrate the digital signal
processing to improve the power quality that will greatly increases the
IC costs.
Power quality for any AC lamp indicates how the lamp draws current when
supplied with sinusoidal voltage from the incoming AC.
Incandescent
lamps have a resistance that draws current as a linear load, but LED
has diodes that draw current as a non-linear load. As a consequence of
this non-linear behavior, some existing SSL exhibit poor power quality
in terms of both power factor (PF) and total harmonic distortion (THD).
With our techniques, the regulator IC will make sure that the alignment
of waveform peaks. The current waveform will be less distorted because
it conforms better to voltage waveform at low voltage.
The increased
current at low voltage also boosts luminous efficacy and reduced
distortion; hence, lower total harmonic distortion.