An Adaptive High-Efficiency LED Backlight Driver

Abstract

An adaptive high-efficiency light-emitting Diode (LED) backlight driver scheme has been proposed to address the issue of additional power loss caused by LED forward voltage variation. In this scheme, the peak current and the duty cycle of each LED channel are adjusted separately through an adaptive control algorithm to minimize the voltage drop on the linear current regulator (LCR) of each LED channel to reduce the excessive power loss in each LED channel and enhance the total power efficiency. A linear current regulator, suitable for adaptive control, is designed on a 0.18 μm 5V complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process. Simulation results demonstrate that the linear current regulator can achieve a linearly adjustable channel current ranging from 0 to 48 mA with a current resolution of 0.2 mA. Across different process corners and temperatures, the maximum error for the full current range is less than 0.1%. The core area of chip layout is about 0.1 mm2. The complete driver prototype comprises the LCR chips, external power MOS transistors, digital module, and LED chains. The test results show that the power loss of the linear current regulator has been significantly reduced, and the power efficiency of each LED channel has been measured at around 98.1%.