California Micro Devices (News - Alert) has unveiled a new product in its LuxGuard family of turnkey solutions for electrostatic discharge protection for high brightness LED lighting applications.

 

California Micro Devices is a supplier of protection devices for the mobile handset, high brightness LED, digital consumer electronics and personal computer markets.

 

According to CMD officials, advancements in newer technologies have enabled ultra high brightness light emitting diodes to deliver high efficiency and performance and they are now being deployed in a number of traditional applications such as status indicators and alpha numeric displays to a diverse set of applications, including handset display and keypad illumination, automotive, signage, residential and commercial lighting. But these LEDs are highly susceptible to ESD damage and LED manufacturers are looking for solutions that will provide ESD protection and thermal management for HB LEDs.

 

CMD claims that they have been a pioneer in the development of ESD protection circuits for high power, high brightness LED applications and their new LuxGuard CM1771 is the industry's first ESD protection solution for HBLED applications to feature a 100 volt breakdown voltage.

 

The solution can offer enhanced levels of ESD protection to a growing segment of high power HBLED lighting applications that feature high output power, high efficacy levels reaching over 120 lumens per watt or those utilizing multiple HBLEDs driven in a serial arrangement.

 

Existing ESD protection solutions for HBLED can offer only breakdown voltages of less than 50 volts, making them incapable of providing a single chip solution for higher power and multiple HBLED applications.

 

CMD has claimed that its LuxGuard solutions offer high performance with the benefits of standard merchant product offering. They come in multiple design options and can seamlessly fit into existing architecture and leverage extensive application, process, product and technical capabilities to offer highly differentiated solutions.

 

Some of the critical specifications of the LuxGuard CM1771 include: back-to-back zener diode configuration for bi-directional ESD protection; safely dissipates ESD strikes of at least 6 kV, Human Body Model, 100 volt breakdown voltage (typical), top pad composition: Gold; and compact flip chip package.

 

CMD recently announced XtremeESD Design Wins for new Sharp (News - Alert) Aquos LCD TVs.