Infineon launches lamp ballast controller

Infineon Technologies has launched the ICB2FL01G lamp ballast controller that features intelligent digital/mixed signal power control.

The lamp ballast controller integrates Power Factor Correction (PFC), lamp controller and high-voltage half-bridge driver functions into a single, compact, surface-mounted package.

Employing digital/mixed signal power control technologies the product integrates all of the lamp start, run and protection features required by current and future fluorescent lamp ballasts.

Reliable high-voltage isolation is achieved using Infineon's Coreless Transformer Technology (CLT).

The company said that CLT offers excellent immunity from positive as well as negative transients.

Typical applications for the ICB2FL01G product are electronic ballasts for compact fluorescent lamps, linear fluorescent T5 and T8 lamps, dimmable fluorescent lamps and emergency lighting.

Digital/mixed signal power control enables stable, dependable ballast designs to be implemented with the minimum of external components.

Depending on the application, more than 20 components, including capacitors, diodes and resistors can be saved.

Furthermore, the use of this technology allows parameters to be set utilising only resistors, which avoids the issues with trimming and aging associated with the use of capacitors in existing solutions.

With few additional external components the ICB2FL01G supports multi-lamp designs controlling up to four lamps as well as multi-power ballast designs handling different power lamps.

A key feature of this ballast controller is the provision of built-in test modes that allow ballast manufacturers to shorten production test times.

Other features of Infineon's ICB2FL01G controller include a wide programmable preheat time spanning from 0ms to 2500ms, as well as timing and frequency control over a temperature range of -25C to +125C.

More and more emphasis is being placed on the efficient production of light and its effective use.

With this in mind, the ICB2FL01G has been designed to be highly compatible with dimmable lamp ballasts, offering up to 90 per cent efficiency and THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) performance over a wide load range.

A lamp fault detection and restart control enables compliance with Emergency Lighting requirements according to the European DIN VDE 0108 standard.

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