Strategy to enhance the reliability of LED lighting systems

To create an energy-efficient and efficient smart lighting system, the use of MCUs and dimmable drivers for environmental sensing and high-efficiency dimming is a prevailing design trend for today's LED lighting systems. In addition, simulations of optics and heat dissipation are also used. It is an indispensable development link to ensure the reliability and safety of LED products.

Circuit design and system simulation are the key to achieving the success or failure of LED intelligent lighting systems. The addition of a microcontroller (MCU) to the circuit design can not only monitor the LED device all the time and provide immediate feedback on abnormal conditions, but also enable lighting equipment. Group control to adjust energy, so that the lighting system is more intelligent; and to strengthen the stability of the LED light source, the dimmable driver into the circuit design, you can solve the problem of light scintillation, and improve energy efficiency.

On the other hand, verifying the feasibility of products through the simulation process of optics and heat dissipation is even more crucial. This will not only ensure product safety, but also accelerate the development time of products and increase market competitiveness in the simulation process. .

Implementing the intelligent lighting system MCU's role in eating is becoming more and more popular with the use of LEDs, and applications are becoming more and more diverse, among which the opportunities for smart lighting systems are more expected by the industry. In order to create LED intelligent lighting systems, the MCU can realize automatic brightness adjustment, automatic color conversion, environmental sensing, and group system control and other functions to enrich the application of LED lighting and improve energy efficiency.

Inventec senior application engineer Zhu Dansen said that MCUs can enable LED lamps to realize smart lighting systems, fully improve energy use efficiency and enrich LED multiple applications.

In the past, LED lamps lacked control and changes. Even though LEDs have been more durable than traditional halogen lamps and incandescent lamps, the LED's light output will be degraded due to aging and temperature effects during prolonged use, resulting in easy electrical power in the lighting fixtures. Damage, which greatly reduces reliability, and the inability to dim light also result in inefficient use of energy. The combination of the above factors will eventually lead to a reduction in the service life of the LED. At the same time, the application will also be tedious because the light cannot be changed.

Zhu Dansen further pointed out that in order to achieve the goals of dimming control, color conversion, and high-efficiency energy use, the introduction of LED lamps into MCUs can make more application changes in indoor lighting, outdoor lighting, decorative lighting, and emergency lighting, such as controlling LED lights. During the day, the brightness is adjusted according to each different time period to save energy, or remote group control is performed through the digital addressable illumination interface (DALI) in the MCU, and the LED device is still monitored at all times for normal operation to inform the project The rapid maintenance of personnel, these new applications make LED lights no longer just open and close, but also have more flexible use.

It is understood that Infineon to seize the market intelligence LED lighting market, respectively introduced XC835 and XC836 two MCU, in addition to the two MCU pin number and size, the biggest difference is that XC836 support DALI, can do for LED lamps The remote control of the smart system, while the XC835 is not supported. In addition, both models support touch control and feature high heat resistance (150°C) and high reliability. At present, this series of MCU is mainly used in the entertainment decorative lighting market, common T4, T8 and other small and medium-sized fluorescent tubes and bulbs.

For the entertainment decorative lighting market, due to the colorful entertainment content, not only the importance of intelligent automatic dimming, but also on the LED lamp life, luminous efficiency and lighting stability requirements, so adjustable light driver to solve the above The problem began to be designed into the lighting system.

Adjustable LED lighting efficiency is hard to achieve Optical drives are increasingly stringent requirements of governments in various countries, incentives for dimmable LED lighting needs warming, in order to achieve high-performance dimming and solve the problem of flicker, Texas Instruments (TI) announced two days ago Highly-integrated, phase-tunable AC-DC LED lighting driver for retrofit bulbs, ballasts, downlights, and spotlights Dimming needs.

Xiao Yizhou, senior applications engineer for power application products at Texas Instruments Analog Devices' market in Asia, said that LEDs with built-in dimmable power driver ICs will soon replace dimmable conventional bulbs.

Although traditional light bulbs can also be dimmed, they are more power consuming and have a shorter lifespan, resulting in the dimmable conventional light bulbs having to be maintained frequently. The introduction of dimmable power supply driver integrated circuit (IC) LED lights not only takes into account LED's 80% energy saving compared to conventional light bulbs, but also has a lifetime of at least 20,000 hours. It is even more capable of dimming, improving energy efficiency and speeding up. Energy-saving LED lighting replaces traditional light bulbs.

For the flag-saving LED lighting market, Texas Instruments has introduced the TPS92070/LM3448 dimmable series solution. Its high current accuracy feature allows customers to accurately define the upper and lower limits of the current, eliminating the time cost of customer non-stop calibration, and Due to its high-performance structure, peripheral components supporting this driver IC can be reduced, further reducing customer costs.

Xiao Yizhou further pointed out that at present, a series of dimmable driver ICs from Texas Instruments are mainly exported to Japan, Europe, and the United States. However, due to different safety standards, the required driver IC specifications are also not the same. For example, TPS92070 has a structural design of isolation, high security, can meet the safety requirements of the United States, Japan's main shipment is a non-isolated LM3448, and whether the isolation of the design, the impact on the overall cost of LED lighting For 2%, everything depends on customer needs.

Xiao Yizhou stated that under the requirements of relevant energy-saving laws and regulations, currently developed countries in Japan, Europe, and the United States have all adopted LED luminaires that incorporate dimmable driver ICs. However, in developing countries such as mainland China, there are no relevant regulatory requirements. The use of low-cost non-dimmable LED lamps.

As for Taiwan, although there are no relevant regulatory requirements, luminaire manufacturers have introduced dimming driver ICs. The market for their application is still mainly for the entertainment lighting market. General indoor lighting, outdoor lighting, and emergency lighting have not started to spread. If the energy-saving regulations are further formulated in the future, it is believed that energy-saving LED lighting will become more prevalent.

In addition to the advantages and disadvantages of the choice of dimmer architecture, in order to accelerate the time-to-market and reduce the overall development cost of LED products, the use of optical simulation and thermal simulation to verify product feasibility before the product is officially opened for production has become a relevant industry. An important weapon to defeat the enemy.

Accelerated LED development with step-by-step optics/thermal simulation is indispensable. Zhuang Shiren, general manager of Greenlight Technology, said that through optical and thermal simulation, LED products can be brought to market as soon as possible, and ensure quality and reliability.

Since the product design of LEDs is subject to many tests and verifications, optical simulation and heat dissipation simulations will lead to quality defects after mass production. To solve this problem, the use of dedicated simulation software with three-dimensional (3D) models for accurate simulation analysis and verification of LEDs has become an indispensable part of the development of LED lamps to ensure the quality of future LED products.

In order to create a smart, energy-efficient, intelligent lighting system, the use of MCUs and dimmable drivers for environmental sensing and high-efficiency dimming is a prevailing design trend for today's LED lighting systems; in addition, the simulation of optics and heat dissipation is also It is an indispensable development link to ensure the reliability and safety of LED products.

Circuit design and system simulation are the key to achieving the success of the LED lighting system. In the circuit design, adding a microcontroller (MCU) can not only monitor the LED device all-weather, but also report abnormal conditions immediately. Group control of lighting equipment can also be used to adjust energy and make the lighting system more intelligent. In order to strengthen the stability of the LED light source, the dimmable driver can be introduced into the circuit design, which can solve the problem of light scintillation and enhance energy. Use efficiency.

On the other hand, verifying the feasibility of products through the simulation process of optics and heat dissipation is even more crucial. This will not only ensure product safety, but also accelerate the development time of products and increase market competitiveness in the simulation process. .