LED Driver Powers Cell Phone Backlights

A tiny backlight LED driver, the LP3954 Advanced Lighting Management Unit controls lighting applications in handheld devices such as cellular phones, digital still cameras, gaming devices and MP3 players. Integrated onto the chip are two backlight drivers, a dual red-green-blue (RGB) LED controller, a flash LED driver, an A/D converter and a magnetic boost dc/dc converter that can drive high current loads over a wide battery voltage range. The device is capable of driving two separately controlled white LED backlights for the main and sub-display. In the case of a single large display, these can be combined to drive up to six LEDs. Built-in features include backlight fading, RGB control and audio synchronization. The IC is packaged in a 36-bump micro SMD that measures 3 mm x 3 mm x 0.6 mm. Price is $2.10 each/1,000. NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR, Santa Clara, CA. (800) 272-9959.