The PFC plus LCC topology is said to be 5 to 6 percent more efficient than other commonly used two-stage topologies, but the design of LED drivers with this topology is highly time-consuming. Infineon’s new LCC tool, which is said to be a first in the market, is intended to make the design work much faster and easier.
Lighting accounts for a significant portion of the world’s total electricity consumption, emphasising the importance of energy-efficient solutions in this sector. PFC plus LCC resonant topology for constant current output has offered improved levels of efficiency together with a large output voltage range in high-power LED lighting applications, such as outdoor and horticultural lighting. The high design effort and complexity involved have, however, been limiting in terms of the widespread usage of this well-suited and efficient topology in LED drivers.
“Our new LCC design tool offers a streamlined solution for designers to deploy highly efficient and reliable PFC plus LLC solutions in reduced time and effort, bypassing a time-consuming iterative design approach,” explained Hakan Yilmazer, Head of Application Management Lighting at Infineon Technologies.
“Assuming that 300 million LED drivers with an average power of 60W were converted from less efficient topologies to PFC plus LCC topology, the energy produced by one large coal power plant with a capacity of 1000 MW could be saved per year. This is now possible with the support of Infineon’s LCC tool as well as the broad portfolio of suitable controllers and power switches.”
PFC plus LCC topology is the preferred version of PFC plus resonant topology due to the wide output voltage range that can be achieved, offering high efficiency of up to 94 percent.
Resonant topologies are usually used for power ranges greater than 100W by most LED driver vendors, where the topology benefits are most obvious. This topology is not limited to high-power LED drivers only, but it can also be deployed in power ranges down to 40W as an alternative topology to Flyback plus DC-DC buck.
With Infineon’s LCC design tool, designers simply enter their key parameters, and the tool will then provide the necessary data to design their circuit, reducing their time and effort to design the circuit by more than 50 percent.
Infineon is also able to offer two high-performance and highly integrated combo controllers, the ICL5102 and ICL5102HV, that can fulfil the PFC and resonant functions. These ICs can be operated at a maximum frequency of up to 500 kHz continuously due to their particular architecture, which helps to minimise the bill of materials, especially for passive components.
Infineon’s CoolMOS 600 V P7 and 950 V PFD7 families can also be used with higher-frequency designs.
The LCC design tool can be accessed online.
