New Allegro LED Drivers Bring High-End Lighting Technology to Mainstream Vehicles

Allegro MicroSystems has expanded its automotive lighting portfolio to include two new offerings for advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) applications.

The A80803 leverages multi-topology conversion and patented IP to enable smooth high/low/high beam transitions in a single integrated circuit (IC). The A80804 linear LED driver provides high power for automotive lighting applications through multiple, independently-configurable channels.

Both products help designers reduce the number of ICs required to create safety-enhanced automotive lighting systems, enabling higher performance and more compact designs at lower system cost.

Vehicle lighting plays a key role when it comes to driver and passenger safety. According to a recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), driving at night is three times riskier than driving during the day, and crash rates for vehicles that have headlights with an IIHS good rating are nearly 20 percent lower than ones with a poor rating. ADAS applications and lighting enhancements that improve night-time road and vehicle visibility can significantly improve driver response times, helping prevent crashes and saving lives.

The A80803 is a switch-mode, constant-current controller for high-power LED automotive lighting applications that addresses many common pain points for headlight designers, with innovative features that make it easier for headlight designers to bring advanced functionality to mainstream vehicles. The multi-topology single-ended controller design, combined with wide input/output voltage capability, provides a universal solution for a wide variety of use cases and/or number of LEDs. Options for SPI-based control or EEPROM-based end-of-line programming for standalone operation further extend the range of possibilities.