New LED Driver From Supertex Protects LEDs

Supertex, Inc, a recognized leader in high voltage analog and mixed signal integrated circuits (ICs), today introduced HV9860, a boost LED driver that is designed to optimize LED performance and extend LED life in applications such as RGB or white LED backlighting, LCD TVs and monitors, and LED lamps for general lighting. The IC uses a peak current mode control scheme and includes an internal transconductance amplifier to accurately control output current over all line and load conditions.
HV9860 also includes LED wiring fault detection, which protects an LED string from high current in cases of accidental short circuit from any tap in the string to ground. A wiring fault scenario is created, for example, during production when a wire connecting the LEDs gets shorted to the chassis, and, as a result, a very high current is delivered to the operating LEDs. The built-in protection provided by HV9860 identifies this scenario and shuts the IC down as well as signaling a fault to the rest of the circuit.