Integrated circuit design and application for electronic ballasts

Integrated circuits for electronic ballasts are a growing market today. Driven by the telecommunication industry, powerful technologies have been developed to handle both, the large scale integrated signal processing, and the power stage driving and control. These technologies are delivering the fundament for IC solutions, which meet both, the cost requirements of ballasts, as well as the aiming at miniaturization. Special custom integrated solutions make sense for high-end comfort ballasts with extended signal processing, focusing on bus connection, comprehensive dimming purpose, and advanced lamp control and protection. For the mass market, a modular system is desirable, which allows for flexible change of product characteristic features. Such a system can be reached by IC families which cover important ballast features, as free choosen frequency, dimming, lamp and ballast overload protection, end-of-life protection, over-voltage and under-voltage protection, power-factor correction (PFC), a simple power-control interface, and last, but not least, a simple adjustment of the output power for any new lamp type.