LED controller with 30% higher lumen per watt and excellent color temperature quality

"Making LED bulbs compatible with all existing dimming systems in the world is one of the biggest challenges facing LED bulb manufacturers," said Jon Gamble, senior analyst at Datapoint Research. "Solving the problem of dimming compatibility while still maintaining cost-effectiveness is key to accelerating the widespread adoption of LED bulbs by consumers in the coming years. Cirrus Logic's CS161X and CS163X products, which both offer near 100% compatibility with all types of dimmers worldwide, will continue to drive global adoption of LED bulbs with digital TruDim dimming compatibility technology. Its second digital LED controller product line, the CS163X product line, offers dual-channel LED mixing and dual-color features in addition to near 100% compatibility with all types of dimmers worldwide. This will help LED bulb manufacturers create natural, high-quality warm light more efficiently while lowering the cost barrier for dual-channel LED bulbs."

The CS163X product family has better color quality and can achieve up to 30% better efficacy than single-channel white LED products. The innovative digital architecture helps the CS163X product family control two LED strings using components that are generally used to control a single LED string, achieving lower system costs compared to today's dual-channel solutions. In addition, the CS163X integrates power line calibration technology, which allows manufacturers to calibrate bulb characteristics such as light output and color temperature by sending commands through the AC power supply during the final stage of manufacturing. This patent-pending technology helps manufacturers take advantage of multiple performance characteristics of LEDs, thereby reducing LED costs and achieving consistency in light output and color temperature between bulbs.

“Cirrus Logic’s CS163X family of dual-channel, TRIAC-dimmable digital LED controllers is a breakthrough in the digital controller market and an ideal system solution for our Brilliant Mix technology,” said Horst Varga, applications engineer at OSRAM Opto Semiconductors. “The CS163X’s high level of integration and performance will help our Brilliant Mix technology address new opportunities in markets where high color rendering index (CRI) and high efficacy are required for LED applications. The combination of these technologies will accelerate the growth of LED bulbs that deliver the same natural light quality as today’s incandescent and halogen bulbs.”

In March 2012, Cirrus Logic officially entered the LED market with the launch of its first LED controller product line, the CS161X. This product line is primarily focused on solving the dimming compatibility problem. The foundational element of Cirrus Logic's LED product line is its digital TruDim technology, which is the result of a three-year investment in TRIAC interface algorithms, LED driver topologies, and system architecture. TruDim digital intelligence allows the controller to identify the type of dimmer in use and adjust the compatibility algorithm, providing smooth dimming in the same way that consumers have expected for decades with incandescent bulbs.

“The roadmap for Cirrus Logic’s digital LED controllers is to help LED luminaire manufacturers solve important challenges, such as dimming compatibility and color quality, to drive consumer adoption,” said Will Draper, strategic marketing manager for LED lighting products at Cirrus Logic. “The CS163X family builds on our first-generation digital LED driver, the CS161X, which had near-perfect dimming compatibility, while adding dual-channel hybrid dual-color technology for superior light quality that delivers up to 30 percent energy savings over single-channel white LED bulbs. This new generation of products sets the performance benchmark for dimming and color quality, and our future products will continue to focus on reducing system cost while maintaining performance leadership.”

Digital TruDim Technology

The CS161X series, which delivers industry-leading dimming compatibility, is the result of a three-year investment in TRIAC interface algorithms, LED driver topologies and system architectures, which are the foundation of TruDim technology. The digital intelligence of the CS161X allows the controller to identify the type of dimmer being used and adjust the compatibility algorithm to provide smooth dimming in the same way consumers have expected for decades using incandescent bulbs. This intelligent adaptive digital signal processing technology is not possible with today's analog controllers.

Market Background

LED bulbs are widely considered to be the best alternative to incandescent and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) for their superior energy efficiency and longer life. Barriers to their mass adoption are higher costs, as well as poor dimming compatibility and color quality, as faced by CFLs. Given that most consumers are not satisfied with the color quality performance of current CFLs, the challenge of improving color quality represents a great opportunity for solid-state lighting (SSL) technology. At the same time, improved color quality is a major advantage of LED lamps due to their more uniform optical properties. Therefore, by simultaneously transmitting warmer correlated color temperatures with higher color rendering indices, SSL products can more closely replicate the user experience of using incandescent lamps.
Market analysis firm Datapoint Research predicts that the application of LED lamps in ambient lighting will increase from approximately 200 million in 2011 to 1 billion in 2015.