RGB-LED driver delivers smart automotive lighting

Melexis has rolled out its MLX81116 multi-channel RGB-LED driver with the company’s MeLiBu (Melexis Light Bus) high-speed communication IP that enables intelligent animated automotive interior lighting. The communication interface allows car makers to improve safety using animated lighting in the cabin for features such as driver-assistance prompts and vehicle status information. These lightbars can be used in safety warning, advanced navigation, and blind-spot warning applications.

The fully integrated smart automotive LED driver offers high-speed communication between multiple LED drivers to enable applications with high LED counts for animated light applications. It includes all of the required components for LED driving as well as communication. It provides real-time update of >250 RGB LEDs without delay.

Melexis said RGB-LED lightbars can communicate to the driver through color coding, color changing, and blinking sequences, but there are challenges. These include maintaining consistent color across all the LEDs in the lightbar, and ensuring they all change together, at the same time.

The company’s answer is the new MLX81116, which addresses these issues with its high-speed communication interface IP. The MeLiBu controls all individual LEDs separately in the lightbar to produce the lighting effects, while providing real-time compensation of any LED color drift caused by environmental changes.

The MeLiBu communication interface is based on the CAN-FD physical layer, which ensures robustness, reliability, and high speed (up to 2 Mbit), said Melexis. The interface supports dedicated optical parameters that allows color-mixing accuracy with a delta UV of 1% to ensure no distinguishable differences between individual LEDs in the lightbar. It also provides temperature compensation without additional external components.

The MLX81116 driver IC has a wide dimming range that allows for brightness adjustment for daytime and night driving. It meets automotive ISO 26262 functional safety requirements up to safety integrity level B (ASIL B), and features low EMI emission and high immunity, thanks to the use of the CAN-FD physical layer, which eases compliance with applicable EMC regulations, said Melexis.