New PLED 6 series from Littelfuse

Littelfuse has introduced the PLED 6 Series, an open LED protector that provides a switching electronic shunt path when a single LED in an LED array fails as an open circuit.

This ensures that the entire array of LEDs will continue to function even if a single LED in the array does not.

The Littelfuse PLED 6 Series open LED protector helps LED lighting manufacturers design for critical-reliability, hostile-environment applications such as automotive headlights, traffic lights, bridge lighting, and aircraft runway lighting. In these applications, light replacement is costly; open LED protection preserves the advantages of long-life LED technology and helps end users avoid high maintenance costs.

The new LED open circuit protector features a current range of 300mA to 1.0A, the highest current range on the market. It also features a low on-state voltage of 1.5V and low off-state current which lowers power dissipation and reduces the impact of heating on LEDs, which are delicate solid-state devices and can be easily damaged by current surges and transients. Such protection is especially important in a growing LED market that reached $4.2 billion in 2006 and is expected to grow to upwards of $9 billion by 2011.

The PLED 6 Series open LED protector uses a 4-layered thyristor structure that automatically resets if the LED heals itself or is replaced and also features built-in surge immunity. Its environmentally friendly package is RoHS compliant and halogen free as well.

The PLED 6 Series open LED protector is available in two surface mount packages, the DO-214 and the Quad Flat Pak No-lead (QFN). The QFN’s low profile, chip scale package (CSP) is ideal for dense board applications as well as strings of LED lighting.

Posted: 28 Oct 2008

Author: Abacus Conelec