32-bit MCU features dedicated hardware unit for LED lighting control
The XMC™1000 family of microcontrollers from Infineon provide high-performance control functions for power-conversion and intelligent lighting thanks to the availability of peripherals such as special timers and a math co-processor.
Infineon has equipped products in its XMC1000 family of 32-bit microcontrollers with special features which make them ideal for use as digital power controllers in LED drivers.
The XMC1000 family MCUs, based on an Arm® Cortex®-M0 core, perform well in low-cost embedded control applications, not only multi-channel LED lighting, but also industrial I/O systems, motor controllers, and human-machine interfaces.
The entry-level XMC1100 MCUs operate at 32 MHz, and draw on embedded Flash memory of up to 64 kbytes. At the high end, the XMC1400 MCUs’ Cortex-M0 core runs at 48 MHz, and Flash memory provision is up to 200 kbytes.
The XMC1200, XMC1300 and XMC1400 series MCUs feature a special brightness and color control unit (BCCU), a module for automatically controlling the dimming level and color of multi-channel LED lamps.
Other features of the XMC1000 family that are useful in smart lighting applications are:
- Tightly interconnected peripherals supporting various digital power-conversion techniques
- Automatic brightness control using high-frequency pulse density modulation. Based on the sigma-delta principle, this feature enables completely flicker-free dimming through nine output channels
- Automatic exponential dimming and linear intensity changes make brightness or color changes appear smooth and natural to the human eye