Small flash LED driver for mobile handsets

California Micro Devices has unveiled a new family of PhotonIC white LED drivers capable of supporting a wide range of high current flash LEDs in today's most advanced handsets.

California Micro Devices has unveiled a new family of PhotonIC white LED drivers capable of supporting a wide range of high current flash LEDs in today's most advanced handsets.

California Micro Devices' CM9410 and CM9412 feature current drive capabilities of up to 1A, high efficiency and multiple operating modes that can be programmed via a digital single wire control interface.

The CM9410 is offered in a 0.4mm pitch chip scale package (CSP), which results in a solution form factor that is five times smaller than equivalent solutions.

The CM9412 is housed in a 3x3mm TDFN (Thin DFN) package.

As camera resolution increases and picture quality becomes a key criterion for camera phone users, powerful camera flash capabilities are needed to take full advantage of high resolution imagers.

In addition, wireless handset designers are facing major challenges in terms of power consumption, battery life, space constraints and cost.

Therefore, significant emphasis needs to be put on optimising the efficiency and footprint of the LED subsystem, specifically for camera flash circuitry.

The CM9410 and CM9412 support a voltage input range of 3.0V to 5.5V and feature a typical efficiency of 85 percent.

They offer various modes of operation including shutdown, torch and two flash modes that can be selected through a user friendly single wire interface.

Preview and flash currents can be programmed independently via external resistors.

Timeout setting is also programmable for flash modes.

Both products offer a drive capability of up to 1A to support a powerful flash with high resolution camera sensors.

The typical switching frequency is 1MHz and typical shutdown current is less than 0.3uA.

These products also feature overcurrent and overvoltage protection as well as undervoltage lockout and a soft start to limit inrush current.

Both products address the requirement for high drive capability for camera flash applications.

The following two figures show application diagrams for the CM9410 and CM9412 respectively.

Four modes selectable via SWC (Single Wire Interface) are available, including shutdown, torch (preview), Flash1 and Flash2.

Evaluation boards and chip samples of the CM9410 and CM9412 are available now.

Chip pricing starts at USD1.00 in 1,000 unit quantities.

Volume production is scheduled for Q1 2007.

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