General Illumination Applications for High-Brightness LED Lighting

LED lighting is rapidly replacing traditional lighting in commercial, industrial, and residential applications such as architectural lighting, channel lettering in signage, retail display lighting, outdoor lighting, and entertainment lighting.

National's solutions in high brightness LED drivers address the challenges of a wide array of general illumination needs for these applications:

Product ID	Architectural / Commercial	Residential	Portable Consumer	Entertainment	Backlighting	Retail Display	Industrial / Outdoor / Wide Area Lighting

See also National's Automotive LED Lighting Solutions.

National's LED Driver Portfolio Delivers:

• Added Design Flexibility
  • Broad Portfolio of Buck, Boost and Buck-Boost Solutions
  • Innovative Dimming techniques
  • Support for wide input voltage range means you can put more LEDs on one string
  • All high-voltage options (LM34xxHV) support up to 75V input
• Higher Efficiency
  • Get up to 96% efficiency with National's step-down solutions
• Robust Feature Set
  • Thermal shutdown, cycle-by-cycle current limit and over-current protection add to the durability and robustness of the total solution
• Reduced Solution Size
  • Small, thermally enhanced packages
  • Constant on time architecture means that no loop compensation is required, reducing the number of external components required in each design

When to use Buck vs Boost:

• Use a buck LED driver to maximize the efficiency (95%+) as V_in nears V_out
• Use a boost LED driver to maximize the number of LEDs per string

National Semiconductor offers a growing portfolio of robust, highly efficient, constant current LED driver solutions complete with dimming features that can be optimized for each of the following applications.

Architectural / Commercial Lighting 

Set the mood with architectural LED lighting. From spot lights for wall washing to cove lighting and other decorative lighting, LEDs are rapidly being adopted to support a wide range of indoor and outdoor architectural applications. Ideal for architectural lighting, LEDs provide the flexibility to rapidly adjust color and brightness without the use of color filters that traditional lighting methods require. LED lighting also minimizes the energy consumption, significantly reducing operating costs. LEDs offer small size, long life, reduced energy consumption, and durability.

Featured Products:

LM3421/23/29

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Residential Lighting 

Today, LED bulbs are commonly used in place of CFLs or standard incandescent light bulbs for residential lighting. Because recessed ceiling lights, desk lamps, landscape lighting and track lighting are often located in hard to get to places and require directional lighting of low to medium intensity, LEDs are an ideal choice. LEDs are durable, long lasting and provide the flexibility to rapidly adjust for color and brightness. LEDs also offer the benefit of small size and reduced energy consumption.

Featured Products:

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Portable Consumer Lighting 

Consumer portable lighting refers to lighting for applications such as flashlights, sports equipment, headlamps, miner lights, and bicycle head or tail lights.

LEDs offer significant advantages over halogen lights in outdoor applications, providing longevity, flexibility dimming, and instantaneous turn on and turn off.

Featured Products:

Related Links:

• Lighting for Personal Mobile Devices
• Portable Solutions Homepage

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Entertainment Lighting 

For a night at the theater or dancing at the club, bright light and lighting effects make the experience. Applications like stage lighting require extremely bright lighting, which means high current and lots of heat. National's negative buck LED driver technology allows for a common anode configuration that can be connected to the chassis for best thermal sinking in high current LED applications. This yields the brightest light while maintaining LED health using National's integrated LED protection features.

Featured Products:

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Backlighting 

For portable device backlighting, National features ultra small solution size white and RGB backlight drivers. Notebooks, monitors, and TVs require high brightness backlighting drivers coupled with high current capabilities. National's high-brightness LED drivers deliver better current control for color uniformity and protection features to extend the life of the LEDs.

National's portfolio of LED backlighting drivers deliver improved user experience through bright, vibrant displays.

• Display Backlighting Drivers

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Retail Display 

Jewelry retailers, cosmetics companies, luxury retailers and chain stores use LED spotlights, floodlights and striplights to showcase their products and merchandise. The reason: LEDs are more energy efficient relative to incandescent sources, render better color, radiate minimal heat (which can damage goods), and are more robust than traditional light sources.

Featured Products:

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Outdoor Area / Wide Area Lighting 

Recent government legislation and incentives in the area of general illumination in Asia, Europe, and the Americas are accelerating the use of LEDs in street lamps and other outdoor lighting applications. LED lighting provides superior reliability, efficiency, dimming, and robustness when compared with traditional CFL and high- or low- pressure sodium lamps lights. In addition, they do not contain hazardous mercury or halogen gases found in traditional fluorescent and HID technologies.

Featured Products:

(string current equalizer for use with constant current power supply)

LM3421/23/29

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Also visit National's LED Lighting Homepage for a complete overview of National's LED lighting solutions.