Offline High Power Factor TRIAC Dimmable Green LED Driver Reference Design

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 19% of the electricity consumed worldwide is used for lighting. Therefore, in recent years, countries around the world have been committed to replacing inefficient incandescent light sources with more energy-efficient solutions. As light-emitting diodes (LEDs) continue to rapidly improve in terms of lumen output and light efficiency, while the average cost per lumen of light output is also decreasing, combined with the advantages of LEDs in terms of high directivity, long life and low maintenance costs, LED lighting (also known as solid-state lighting, or SSL) has become an extremely attractive replacement solution.

Energy efficiency standards for solid-state lighting

In order to promote energy conservation, government agencies or regulatory organizations around the world have formulated different LED lighting standards, mainly reflected in the requirements for power factor (PF). For example, the European Union's International Electrotechnical Union (IEC) stipulates the total harmonic distortion performance of lighting applications with a power greater than 25W, and other international standards in some regions also apply this regulation.

In addition, the US Department of Energy has formulated and issued the "Energy Star" standard for solid-state lighting fixtures. This voluntary standard contains a series of requirements for common residential and commercial lighting fixtures (such as recessed lights, cabinet lights and table lamps), covering minimum lumen output, overall luminous efficacy, reliability targets, light color temperature and a series of other key system-level requirements. It is worth noting that this standard does not directly include power supply efficiency requirements, but it does include power factor requirements, that is, regardless of the power level, residential applications require PF greater than 0.7, commercial applications require PF greater than 0.9, and integrated LED lights require PF greater than 0.7.

Of course, not all countries absolutely require improved power factor in lighting applications, but some applications may have such requirements. For example, utilities may strongly promote products with high power factors for commercial applications in public facilities. In addition, when utilities own/maintain street lights, they can decide whether to require products with high power factors (usually greater than 0.95+) according to their wishes.

13W LED Downlight Design Example

1) Set the Maximum Load Design Target by Referring to the Alternative Standard

Take the Energy Star solid-state lighting fixture standard as an example. This standard includes overall requirements for determining the light efficiency of the fixture. In fact, this standard is a system-level standard involving the selected LED, field operating temperature, optical components, driver power conversion efficiency, etc. Luminaire developers can therefore make trade-offs in the selection of LEDs, the use of optical components, thermal management solutions, driver topology and design to meet the overall requirements. The following table lists the key system requirements for downlights in the Energy Star 1.1 version of the residential and commercial solid-state lighting specification 1.1.

Table 1: Key requirements for downlights in the ENERGY STAR 1.1 version of the residential and commercial solid-state lighting specification

The most common downlights are the larger aperture type. For residential and commercial applications, in addition to the difference in power factor, designers have the flexibility to use neutral and warm white LEDs. From the minimum requirements in Table 1, it can be seen that to obtain the minimum output of 575 lumens, the maximum input power threshold is about 16.4W.

Since there is no directly applicable LED driver efficiency standard, the Energy Star 2.0 external power supply (EPS) standard can be considered as an alternative standard. According to the EPS 2.0 standard, the minimum efficiency requirement for standard power supplies with rated power between 1 and 49W is 0.0626×ln(Pno)+0.622. Therefore, the minimum efficiency of a 12W rated power supply that meets this standard is 77.7%, and the minimum efficiency of a 15W power supply is 79.1%. Since the LED luminaire standard is based on the input socket efficiency, it is necessary to convert the driver efficiency target to the effective LED load. In order to add some design margin, we set the minimum target efficiency to 80%. In this way, the LED load is 16.4W×80%, or 13.1W.

Thus, we have determined the maximum load design target. LED efficacy is subject to the LED manufacturer as well as the drive current and operating temperature. The ON Semiconductor GreenPoint reference design selected a constant current of 350mA to support most high brightness power LEDs on the market. Another factor to consider is that luminaire developers can choose from a wide range of LEDs, and the higher the efficacy of the selected LED, the fewer LEDs are required. Therefore, the efficiency of this GreenPoint reference design is high at 50% to 100% of the rated load. As LED efficacy increases, the same basic power supply design can be easily modified to drive fewer LEDs, thereby providing a luminaire efficacy far above the minimum requirement.

2) Other design requirements

Once the basic design requirements are determined, other system factors related to the end application needs need to be considered. For example, although there is no requirement in the standard, it is important to be compatible with existing line dimming schemes. Therefore, the design should be optimized for triac wall dimmers. There are many challenges in TRIAC dimming, but one factor that designers may easily overlook is that the driver should be able to start and operate under low chopped AC input waveform conditions. In addition, the size of the driver power supply should match the wiring box of the recessed light fixture. There is also a human factor requirement that should be taken into account. Although LEDs actually light up in an instant, the driver design must allow for a specific startup time. Regardless of the LED fixture, this performance should be no worse than CFL, or even better. Therefore, we can use CFL as a reference. The "Energy Star" CFL bulb requirement specifies a maximum startup time of 1 second under rated conditions, so we set the design target for the LED driver in terms of startup time at 0.5 seconds. Since this design is for residential or commercial applications, the specification targets we set are more challenging. Table 2 summarizes the key design goals of this GreenPoint reference design.

Table 2: Key design goals

3) Design approach: single-stage solution provides high power factor

To achieve high power factor, power efficiency targets and compact size, it is necessary to use a single-stage topology with high power factor. Due to the low power target, the traditional two-stage topology (PFC boost + flyback conversion) cannot meet the requirements. Therefore, we used a CrM flyback topology based on ON Semiconductor's NCL30000 critical conduction mode (CrM) flyback controller.

The single-stage topology saves the dedicated PFC boost stage, helping to reduce the number of components and reduce the total system cost. However, the use of a single-stage topology will also affect the system in some ways, such as the lack of low-level high-voltage energy storage and the short output voltage hold time. In addition, the output ripple is higher, more low-voltage output capacitors must be used to meet the hold requirements, and the response to dynamic loads is slower. On the plus side, this is not a problem for many LED lighting applications, because LED lighting applications have no system hold time requirements, and the ripple is integrated into the uniform light output, which is not noticeable to the human eye.

Designing for high power factor (PF>0.95) helps to easily meet the commercial lighting requirements of SSL lamps and make the input current waveform look like a resistive load waveform. This is very important for compatibility with TRIAC dimming, because TRIAC dimmers are originally used for incandescent lamps, and incandescent lamps act like resistors in the circuit, that is, they act as resistive loads. The waveform captured by the oscilloscope shows that the basic current waveform of the optimized single-stage CrM flyback power supply remains in phase with the input voltage waveform.

Figure 1 shows a simplified functional block diagram of the single-stage high power factor flyback topology based on NCL30000 from ON Semiconductor. As can be seen from Figure 1, the secondary side of the isolated flyback has a constant current constant voltage (CCCV) control module. This module has two main functions, one is to tightly regulate the constant current of 350mA and provide feedback to the low-side for adjusting the on-time to regulate the constant current flowing through the LED; the second is to enter the constant voltage control mode when an open circuit event occurs, and generate a regulated fixed voltage in the event of a fault. The open circuit voltage is regulated to the 60 Vdc maximum voltage limit of a UL1310 Class 2 power supply. In addition, the power is limited to prevent damage to the LEDs if the output is accidentally shorted.

The detailed design process of this GreenPoint reference design is provided in the NCL3000 data sheet and two design notes separately provided by ON Semiconductor, see references [2] to [5].

Figure 1: Simplified block diagram of the GreenPoint reference design for a single-stage CrM flyback LED driver based on the NCL30000

4) Test Results

The test results show that the performance of this reference design exceeds all the design targets listed in Table 2, as shown in Figure 2 (see reference [1] for details). Figure 2 shows the power factor and input current total harmonic distortion of the LED driver over the line voltage range of 90 to 135 Vac. It can be seen that the power factor of this reference design is very high (exceeding the minimum power factor requirement of 0.9 for commercial lighting) and the total harmonic distortion is low (<20%). Figure 3 shows the LED energy efficiency under different load conditions. The energy efficiency at the four operating points of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% is averaged, and the total average energy efficiency is 80.7%; while in the critical operating area of ​​50% to 100% load, the energy efficiency range is 81.1% to 82%. This not only exceeds the 80% energy efficiency target set for this reference design, but also exceeds the 79.1% energy efficiency requirement for 15W power supplies in the EPS 2.0 standard. The loss source includes the energy consumption of the 15 ohm current limiting resistor required to support TRIAC dimming in the input EMI stage.

Figure 2: Power factor and total harmonic distortion at 90 to 135 Vac input line voltage conditions

Figure 3: Energy efficiency under different load conditions at 115 Vac input voltage

Summary:


There are many challenges in designing an offline LED driver that meets all the requirements of the next generation of solid-state lighting products. This reference design document shows that ON Semiconductor's single-stage CrM TRIAC dimming LED driver GreenPoint reference design based on NCL30000 meets all key performance indicators, such as the Energy Star 1.1 version of solid-state lighting power factor requirements for commercial and residential applications, and even the reference 2.0 version of external power supply efficiency requirements under critical load conditions. This reference design also provides system developers with the flexibility to increase or decrease power to meet the requirements of different power applications. This approach allows designers to flexibly respond to the improvement of LED light efficacy, allowing them to design luminaires with fewer LEDs but still provide the expected light output.

References:
1. "Offline High Power Factor TRIAC Dimmable LED Driver GreenPoint Reference Design", ON Semiconductor, www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/TND398-D.PDF
2. "NCL30000 Data Sheet", ON Semiconductor, www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/NCL30000-D.PDF
3. "Configuring NCL30000 for TRIAC Dimming", ON Semiconductor, www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/AND8448-D.PDF 4.
"NCL30000 Single Stage CrM Flyback LED Driver Power Stage Design Guidelines", ON Semiconductor, www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/AND8451-D.PDF
5. "NCL30000 Evaluation Board Manual", ON Semiconductor, www.onsemi.cn/pub_link/Collateral/NCL3000LED2GEVB-D.PDF
6. Energy Star Version 1.1 Solid-State Lighting Requirements, www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=new_specs.ssl_luminaires