Page 6 - EE Times Europe November 2021 final

6 EE|Times EUROPE

COVER STORY

Harmonized Two-Stage LED

Driver Systems

BY MICHAEL WEIRICH, Director Technical Marketing Lighting, and MATTHEW REYNOLDS, Senior
Product Marketing Manager Lighting, Infineon Technologies

It has become problematic to satisfy all design and regulatory specifications of modern
lighting systems with a single-stage power-conversion architecture. Today’s hardware
electronics engineers are resolving the requirements by developing multiple-stage
driver designs.

he transformation from fluorescent and incandescent lighting focuses on artificial lighting in such a way as to not disrupt or confuse
to solid-state lighting (SSL) in a relatively short timeline is not your body’s natural rhythm, and in some cases, it can enhance your
something you see often. Fast-paced disruptive technologies performance (sleep or work) by adjusting the light type.
Toccur only when the need is obvious and the economics make Dimming range, the ability of the fixture to dim precisely from 100%
sense for adoption. An additional force on the transition to SSL was the to less than 1%, is another important metric. And, as important as the
fact that SSL offers a better quality product than the incumbent, which range is, the uniformity between fixtures is vital. There is nothing more
sealed the deal. noticeable to a lighting engineer than walking into a room with dozens
The pace of better quality (dimming, color-point, consistency, etc.) of fixtures that are all illuminated at slightly different outputs from
and cost have slowed due to full adoption, but there is still plenty of one another.
room for improvement. Today’s lighting suppliers focus on exceptional Light modulation is defined as a repetitive change in magnitude
light quality, meeting regulatory needs for today’s standards and the over time, or modulation, of the luminous flux of a light source.
future while maintaining a reasonable cost position. The modulation’s magnitude and frequency are the two variables
Quality lighting encompasses many categories, a few of which are describing the severity of the modulation — more significant changes
described here. One of them is human-centric lighting (HCL). HCL (high-low) and lower frequencies being the most detrimental to

NOVEMBER 2021 | www.eetimes.eu