Austriamicrosystems has announced the AS1130, a small dot-matrix LED driver that drives 132 LEDs in 5mm² PCB space. According to the company, the LED driver allows use of cheap connectors, requires few PCB layers, has long battery lifetime, and allows smooth running animations. Using a 12x11 cross-plexed technique, the LED driver is designed for dot-matrix displays in mobile phones, toys, small LED displays in personal electronics, and also non-battery powered household goods, indoor public information displays, and industrial applications, such as power meters. The LEDs have 8bit dimming control and no external resistor is required, according to the company. An 8bit analogue current control is claimed to allow fine tuning of each current source to compensate for different brightness of different colours, or to adjust the white balance on RGB LEDs. The driver incorporates 36 frames of memory for small animations or for use as a buffer to reduce host processor load. The LED driver is available in a gull winged SSOP-28 package and is claimed to be a good replacement for indoor high pixel density video walls. Other features include control via a 1MHz I²C compatible interface, open and shorted LED error detection, and low-power shutdown current. The LED driver operates from -40 to +85°C and 2.7 to 5.5V power supply range.
