Skyworks Captures Additional Analog Content in Smartphones with Industry-leading LED Camera Flash Drivers

“Skyworks is excited to be supporting our customers as they capitalize on consumer demand for high quality images in the exploding smartphone market,” said Liam K. Griffin, executive vice president and general manager of high performance analog at Skyworks. “Our advanced suite of camera flash drivers demonstrates Skyworks’ ability to expand content in the fastest growing market segments, while also diversifying our broad analog product portfolio.”

According to Gartner, Inc., a leading information technology research and advisory firm, mobile phone cameras will grow from approximately 1.6 billion units in calendar year 2011 to over 2.2 billion units in calendar year 2015, representing 92 percent of mobile phones worldwide. An additional 15 percent of them will have two cameras to take portrait photos or to enable video chat. In their Market Trends: Digital Camera Functions in Mobile and Consumer Electronics report, Gartner states, “At present, a digital camera is found in almost all types of mobile electronic equipment devices ranging from mobile phones to notebook PCs, tablet computers and handheld video game consoles. Gartner believes that mobile electronics equipment will have digital camera functions as well as wireless communication function as a standard feature.”

About Skyworks’ LED Camera Flash Drivers

The AAT1274 is a high efficiency, 1.5A high-current boost converter for LED photo flash applications. It maintains output current regulation by switching the internal high-side and low-side switch transistors, pulse-width modulated at a fixed frequency of 2 megahertz. The high switching frequency allows the use of a small external inductor and output capacitor, making it ideally suited in all single cell, Li-ion-powered applications.

Skyworks’ patented AS2Cwire™ (Advanced Simple Serial Control™) digital interface is used to enable, disable, configure and program the operation of the device. Using the AS2Cwire interface, the movie-mode current level for the LED, and the flash-to-movie-mode current ratio can be programmed to one of 16 levels. The AAT1274 includes a separate flash enable input to initiate the flash operation and a flash-inhibit pin which reduces the flash current to movie-mode levels during high-battery demand.

The maximum flash and movie-mode current is set by one external resistor where the ratio of flash to movie-mode current is set at approximately 7:3:1. The AAT1274 can drive one high current LED. In addition, the device contains a thermal management system to protect it from an output short-circuit condition. Built-in circuitry prevents excessive in-rush current during start-up, and the part is available in a Pb-free, thermally-enhanced TDFN33-14 package.