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

^{Published on 2011-03-29 04:21:31 - Market Wire}
 

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - March 29, 2011) - Micrel, Inc. (NASDAQ: [ MCRL ]), an industry leader in analog, high bandwidth communications and Ethernet IC solutions, today announced that it has introduced the [ MIC2860 ], the latest in its product family of high efficiency White LED (WLED) drivers that greatly extends battery life in today's portable and consumer products. The device is designed to drive two WLEDs and features a typical dropout of 50mV at 30mA per channel. The IC is aimed at portable display backlighting, keypad backlighting and camera flash in mobile devices. The [ MIC2860 ] is available in volume quantities with pricing starting at $0.30 for 1K quantities. Samples can now be ordered on line on Micrel's web site at: [ http://www.micrel.com/ProductList.do ].

"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 -40degC to +125degC.

About Micrel, Inc.
Micrel, Inc. is a leading global manufacturer of IC solutions for the worldwide analog, Ethernet and high bandwidth markets. The Company's products include advanced mixed-signal, analog and power semiconductors; high performance communication, clock management, Ethernet switch and physical layer transceiver ICs. Company customers include leading manufacturers of enterprise, consumer, industrial, mobile, telecommunications, automotive, and computer products. Corporation headquarters and state-of-the-art wafer fabrication facilities are located in San Jose, CA, with regional sales and support offices and advanced technology design centers situated throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. In addition, the Company maintains an extensive network of distributors and reps worldwide. Web: [ http://www.micrel.com ].