A CMOS High Dimming Ratio Power-LED Driver
with a Preloading Inductor Current Method
Kwang S. Yoon and Keon Lee
Dept. of Electronic Eng. Inha University
Incheon 402-751, South Korea
ksyoon@inha.ac.kr
Abstract
This paper presents a high dimming ratio LED driver for
automotive lighting applications which require avoiding EMI
radiation. In order to accomplish a high dimming ratio LED
driver, the preloading inductor current methodology is
proposed for the power stage of the proposed circuit to
achieve the fast transient response time during the LED load
switching. The proposed circuit receives the input voltage of
12V and generates the output voltage of 30V with the load
current of 350mA. The chip is implemented with 0.35um
BCDMOS process, and the die area is 2.35 2.35 mm2.
Measurement results illustrate that the proposed LED drive
system features the minimum rising time as small as 240ns
and the corresponding dimming ratio becomes 2000:1 at the
dimming frequency of 1KHz. The maximum power
conversion efficiency of the chip is measured to be 94.82%.
Keywords
Automotive lighting, Power-LED, integtated circuit,
dimming ratio, LED driver 1. Introduction
1. Introduction
In terms of automotive applications, high-power LED light
bulbs are grabbing the attention of many automotive designers
by providing numerous advantages. Not only does the high-
power LED have outstanding energy efficiency (thanks to
eco-friendly technology), it also turns on more quickly than
incandescent light bulbs, which could help to improve safety
if used in brake lights. Additionally, since LED is a direct
light source, it is possible to arrange in the tiniest of spaces,
thereby granting car manufacturing firms the liberty to create
their own designs. Moreover, the lifespan of a high-power
LED light bulb is more than 50,000 hours, much longer than
any other existing lighting technology. This means that LED
light bulbs are ideal for applications requiring extended usage,
such as daytime running lights or a head-up display. However,
in order to apply this high-power LED to these automotive
applications, it would be necessary to secure the cost
reduction and consumer confidence. Certainly, if the LED-
driver can be carried out with ASIC, a reduction in the number
of components in this technology would both decrease the
cost and improve confidence of the consumer.[1-2]
Since the higher driving current reaches, the more rising
and falling times for the LED currents increase, these LED
drivers which are available for launching the High power LED
will have some difficulties to response to dimming signal.
PWM dimming control, which has no color shift issue, is
normally employed to control the LED. This is a way to
control the brightness of LED by turning on repetitively a load
978-1-4673-4953-6/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE 709
of LED driver. In order that LED driver obtains high dimming
ratio, rising time must be minimized. The rising time is limited
by delay time; necessarily that Inductor current reaches steady
state from zero. For this reason, if the dimming signal is
changed more shortly than the minimum rising time, LED
driver could not arrive to provide suitable current to LED.
Most of the LED drivers realized higher rate of dimming, have
concentrated on improving the transient response by taking
advantage of hysteretic control scheme or of double loop
feedback [3-5]. Thats because it would be the better, the
faster the transient response from the LED driver in order to
supply current more stably in spite of a sudden change in the
LED load. The hysteretic control scheme, however,
accompanies some risk to realize the inductor current sensing
on high side because of the difficulty to design; on the other
hands, the double loop feedback could have a negative
influence on the stability of the system. Therefore, the
preloading inductor current method is employed to augment
much more simply the transient response of the Power-LED
driver.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes concept and design considerations for the LED
driver. Simulation and Measurement results are shown in
Section III. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section IV.
2. The proposed LED driver system
The block diagram of the proposed Power-LED driver
system is shown in Fig 1. It consists of a boost DC-DC
converter, the dimming control circuits and additional voltage
feedback loop. The proposed LED driver is designed with a
peak-current-mode DC-DC converter architecture. The system
stability is guaranteed by adopting the pole-zero cancellation
technique with an OTA and a slope compensator [6-7]. A
current-sensing circuit detects the inductor current for slope
compensation. To ensure proper functionality, an enabled
signal is required to control the power-on sequence of the
functional blocks.
Considering the PWM-Dimming control carefully, this is a
kind of technique to adjust the brightness of LED by ordering
to turn it on or down, depending on the dimming signal with
the fixed current from LED. In other words, the dimming
signal contains information about the current flowing on the
LEDs. This information can be utilized to predict the amount
of the current on the inductor, so that the inductor current can
be preloaded to minimize the rise time of the LED driving
current. Therefore the dimming signal should be modulated in
order to apply this methodology to LED driver. First of all, let
the dimming signal tapped in externally synchronize with the
frequency to switch on LED driver. Based on this dimming
signal synchronized, recreate the dimming signal delayed as
14th Int'l Symposium on Quality Electronic Design
 Fig. 1. The block diagram of the proposed Power-LED driver system
much as the switching cycle did. Its negotiable to decide the
cycle how does it have to be delayed, according to equation
(1).

where is the power conversion efficiency, DMAX is the

maximum duty ratio on the LED driver.[8] The operational
principle on LED driver can be explained as in the following.
Initially, in the soft-start-up period, the internal dimming
signal accomplishes the beginning drive until it reaches high
to flow the current as it has been expected, regardless of the
external dimming signal. When the soft-start-up is
completed, let the LED to drive adjusting to external
dimming signal. When the dimming signal, synchronized
with switching frequency, arrives high, its able to drive the
power switch with just a signal which has been saved in
CCOMP with SW1 and Dim SW opened. During this delay, the
inductor current reaches the amount of the current required to
drive the LED. As the dimming signal becomes delayed, Dim
SW is closed and LED is activated to drive. Since the
inductor current has been already preloaded, the forward
current of the LED-string has no difficulty to enter the steady
state without ringing. At this moment, the voltages sensed
from the array of output resistance are saved in the Variable
Reference Voltage Generator(VRVG). When the dimming
signal goes low, the voltage signal sensed from the VRVG
becomes one of the reference in the PFM operation which
maintains the output voltage in the LED off section. At the
Fig. 2. Flowchart of VRVG operation
same time, SW1 becomes open and the output signal from
the error amplifier is saved in CCOMP. The Power SW stops
working and the inductor current starts discharging. When
LEDs turn off, the boost converter becomes free of load and
runs into the deep discontinuous conduction mode (DCM).
As the LED turns on, the output voltage is maintained, but its Inductor Current
voltage level goes down, because of leakage current. In the
same manner, it is possible to maintain the same voltage level
as on the LED on section with PFM operation.
400mA
In order to maintain the same magnitude of the output
LED string Current
voltage in the LED off time as the one in the LED on time, the
variable reference voltage should be generated. The flow chart
to demonstrate the operational principle of the proposed
circuit is presented in Fig. 2. As the FB1 signal reaches to the Output Voltage
VREF on the LED-on interval, the FB2 signal is stored by the
sample and hold circuit. On the other hand, as the FB1 signal
becomes either stronger or weaker than the VREF, this variable Fig. 3. LED dimming operation waveforms on the General
reference voltage should be calibrated by the charge pump method
circuit. The voltage signal generated in this manner should
become a reference voltage for the PFM mode which works
on the LED-off section. It retains the same output level as the
one on the LED-on interval, The methodology to control the
output voltage enables the circuit to minimize the settling time Inductor Current
and the load regulation and consequently, it helps the current
drive LED more accurately and quickly.
400mA
3. Simulation and Measurement results LED string Current
The proposed high-dimming-ratio Power-LED driver was
implemented in a 0.35um 60-V Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS(BCD)
process, and the system parameters for driving nine 350mA
Output Voltage
white LEDs in series during simulation. A photograph of the
proposed LED driver is shown in Fig 8. It is composed of bias
circuits, LED drive controller, dimming controller, power
stage and bypass capacitors. The die size including pads is Fig. 4. LED dimming operation waveforms on the proposed
2350 2350 um2, where the power NMOSFET occupies method
800 600 um2.
Fig 3 shows the dimming operation waveforms on the
general method, the first line waveform is inductor current and
the second is the LED string current. Last line waveform is the
output capacitor voltage ripple. Fig.4 is the waveform on the
proposed method. It would be possible to stabilizer all
waveforms between the inductor current and the output
voltage ripple, if this methodology proposed is applied to. As
a result, it could be avoided the EMI radiation of LED
PFM operation in
Driver.[9]
dimming off interval
Fig 5 shows waveforms of the PFM operation with
VRVG. When the LED load is disconnected, the output
voltage has a small step rising as residual inductor current.
This voltage variation is 15mV. During the dimming off
interval, the power stage isnt loaded, and it runs into PFM to
hold the output voltage (a small load is added here to increase
Fig. 5. Waveforms of the PFM operation with VRVG
the DCM switching frequency for indication purpose).
In Fig 6, the driver was tested at a 12V input. The loads
Fig 7 shows that the dimming on time to make the LED
were 9 White-LEDs (Cree XLampXP-G R4). Waveforms of
current in regulation can be as small as 1.5us. The rising and
VOUT, IL, Synchronized dimming signal and delayed dimming
falling times for the power-LED current were 240ns and 37ns,
signal are shown. According to equation (1), it is measured
respectively. As a result, the dimming ratio of the LED driver
that the dimming signals from LED driver was delayed for 2
was 2000:1 for a PWM frequency of 1kHz. Table 1 shows
cycles. The Inductor current starts to charge in synchronized
summary of the measured performance of the proposed
dimming signals, after 1us, LEDs also drive according to
circuit. The simulation and measurement results demonstrated
delayed dimming signals.
the feasibility of this control methodology.
 VOUT : (100mV/div ac coupled)

IL : (500mA/div)

Delay DIM : (5V/div)

Sync DIM : (5V/div)

Fig. 6. Measured waveforms of the proposed LED driver

with Preloading inductor current method

VOUT : (100mV/div ac coupled) Fig. 8. Photograph of the proposed LED driver

Table 1. Summary of the measured performance of the

proposed circuit
Technology 0.35m 60V BCD 2P4M
Rising time of ILED : 240ns ILED : 353mA (500mA/div) Die size 2350 m x 2350 m

Minimum dimming on time : 1.5us (1us/div) Input Voltage 12 V

Output Voltage 27.7 V

delay time : 1us , 2cycles Number of LEDs 9 Power-LEDs

Output Current 353 mA

Fig. 7. Measurement result of the minimum dimming on time.
Switching frequency 2.0 MHz
This paper presented a high power LED driver for Minimum rising time of ILED 240 ns
automotive applications. It is composed by a boost power
stage and some dimming control. And a 2000:1 dimming ratio Minimum falling time of ILED 37 ns
at 1kHz dimming frequency is achieved. The driver is capable
Maximum dimming ratio 2000:1 @ fDimming=1kHz
of driving up to 12 LEDs with 400mA. The proposed power
LED driver is suitable for applications that require low EMI Inductor / DCR 10H / 72m
radiation.
Capacitor /ESR 10F / 150m
Acknowledgment Maximum power conversion
94.82%
Authors thank the IC Design Education Center (IDEC) for efficiency
chip fabrication. This work was supported by Key Research
Institute Program through the National Research Foundation
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