austriamicrosystems targets large-scale indoor/outdoor LED displays, small dot-matrix displays, and camera flash applications with three driver IC announcements.

austriamicrosystems has announced the AS1123 16-channel LED driver for applications in large LED panels and video walls in indoor/outdoor applications. The company has also announced the AS1130 driver capable of powering 132 LEDs for small dot-matrix displays in applications such as mobile phones, toys, and other personal electronics. The AS364x series of drivers for LEDs used as a camera flash in mobile phones and dedicated digital cameras was also announced recently.

The AS1123 driver dedicates an output channel to each LED in large-scaled LED display applications. Users can cascade the drivers using a serial interface to support extremely large numbers of LEDs. Applications range from large high-definition video boards in locations such as stadiums to much simpler signs that scroll text messages.

austriamicrosystems says that the architecture driving a single LED with each output channel saves power relative to other schemes. The output voltage range can be set as low as the forward voltage of a single LED thereby eliminating wasted power that is dissipated as heat in other schemes.

"Large video walls such as those designed to the HDTV standard have an increased number of LEDs," said Rene Wutte, austriamicrosystems