Microchip | MM5450YV

Micrel Inc., is a leading manufacturer of IC solutions for the worldwide analog, Ethernet and high bandwidth markets. The Company's products include high performance analog, power, advanced mixed-signal and radio frequency semiconductors; high speed communication, clock management, Ethernet switch and physical layer transceiver integrated circuits. These products address a wide range of rapidly growing end markets including cellular handsets, portable and enterprise computing, enterprise and home networking, wide area and metropolitan area networks and industrial equipment.

LED Lighting is gaining popularity as an environmentally friendly lighting solution. The ability to control brightness and color temperature by electronic dimming makes LED lighting an appealing solution for many illumination applications ranging from mood lighting to video projection. Regardless of type, color, size, or power, all LEDs work best when driven with a constant current. LED manufacturers specify the characteristics (such as lumens, beam pattern, color) of their devices at a specified forward current (IF) not at a specific forward voltage. Low-power LEDs are ideal for lighting portable electronics because they are efficient, easy to drive, small, thin, robust, and low noise. When running off a Lithium-Ion battery (typically 3.7 V output voltage), each low-power LED requires up to 4 V at 30 mA. To operate more than one LED for a lighting solution, an LED driver is needed to boost the voltage and regulate the current to optimize LED output.

The MM5450 and MM5451 LED display drivers are monolithic MOS IC’s fabricated in an N-Channel, metalgate process. The technology produces low-threshold, enhancement-mode, and ion-implanted depletion-mode devices. A single pin controls the LED display brightness by setting a reference current through a variable resistor connected to the supply.

Key Features:

• Continuous brightness control.
• Serial data input.
• No load signal requirement.
• Enable (on MM5450).
• Wide power supply operation.
• TTL compatibility.
• 34 or 35 outputs, 15 mA capability.
• Alphanumeric capability.

Applications:

• Industrial control indicator.
• Relay driver.
• Digital clock, thermometer, counter, voltmeter.
• Instrumentation readouts.