Micrel Introduces New Dual White LED (WLED) Driver Product Family Greatly Extending Battery Life In Portable Products

The MIC2860-2 WLED Driver gives our customers a very high efficiency, yet cost effective solution for situations where only two WLEDs are required for backlighting in portable devices, noted Andy Khayat, Director Portable Business Unit, Micrel.

The device's low dropout linear architecture provides the highest possible battery life in consumer applications by eliminating switching losses present in traditional charge pumps or inductive boost circuits. This allows the WLEDs to be driven directly from the battery and has the added benefit of eliminating inductive or charge pump switching noise from the system. The two channels have better than ±0.5 percent current matching, which ensures uniform display illumination under all conditions. The maximum WLEDs brightness can be externally preset by a resistor and then dimmed using either a PWM signal or a single wire digital control. The MIC2860-2D single wire digital interface accepts digital programming pulses providing 32 dimming steps, while the MIC2860-2P accepts a PWM dimming signal. The MIC2860-2D is available in Thin SOT-23 and SC-70 six pin packages with a junction temperature range of −40°C to +125°C.

The MIC2860 is available in volume quantities with pricing starting at $0.30 for 1K quantities.