Macroblock Announces New Generation LED Driver for LED Displays

The precise output current control of an LED driver delivers more uniform color or brightness of LEDs, improving the image quality and color performance of LED display panels. 

“Macroblock is proud to facilitate customers to produce the LED display panels with best image quality,” said Robert Chen, the general manager of Macroblock, “It is our commitment to continuously innovate and contribute”.

MBI5025 has achieved incredible uniformity performance for LED display panels. Macroblock is confident to deliver the new generation LED drivers of the same uniformity with the smallest output current variation in the world from the first to the last shipments. To maintain the quality from each LED module to each LED display panel, Macroblock’s continuous uniformity improvements on the new generation LED drivers will greatly benefit manufacturers to minimize the variations during the manufacturing process, being able to keep the stability and consistency within LED modules and within different LED display panels and save the manufacturing costs.

Realizing that minimizing the output current variation is the base when it comes to display quality and manufacturing improvements of LED display panels, Macroblock has been dedicated to upgrade the uniformity of LED drivers in every possible way. In terms of IC design, the channel skew and chip skew are caused by the mismatch of devices inside the IC and inconsistency of the different batches of IC. Mismatch means the geometric difference between two devices fabricated at the same time, and inconsistency means the electrical difference between two devices fabricated in different time. The mismatch and inconsistency of process are unavoidable, but Macroblock minimizes the imperfections through three steps:
• First, an elegant circuit design to suppress the effects of mismatch and inconsistency.
• Second, a more consistent and well-controlled fabrication process to minimize the output current variation and to control the entire quality of the IC.
• Finally, 100% testing and qualification process to filter the ICs with best uniformity.

In the past, LED display panel manufacturers used drivers with constant voltage output to drive LEDs, e.g. 74HC595. As a result, it is difficult to control the image quality of LED display panels due to the inconsistent color and brightness of LEDs. To further improve the image quality of LED display panels, the constant current LED driver is applied to achieve better LED uniformity, but the skew of output current is still very large until Macroblock unveiled the famous PrecisionDrive™ LED driver, MBI5026, to lower the channel skew and chip skew to ±3% and ±6% respectively. This limitation of current variation soon becomes the standardized specification on the LED display market because it not only noticeably improves the image quality of LED display panels but also extends the lifetime of LEDs when comparing with the constant voltage type LED drivers.

However, human eyes can distinguish 6% brightness difference, and may be even sensitive to 1% difference when an LED display panel is in a low-brightness configuration. The most common problem is the inconsistent brightness within LED display modules. The brightness differences are usually caused by the mismatch of LEDs or the different batches of LED drivers.

Facing the current challenges of the mismatch of LEDs and different batches of LED drivers, Macroblock, therefore, further improves the channel skew and chip skew of the new generation LED driver, MBI5025, to ±2% and ±3%.

Based on the effort of each solid step, MBI5025 has achieved incredible uniformity performance for LED display panels. LED display manufacturers may easily improve the image quality with better brightness and color consistency and reduce the manufacturing costs caused by the variations from LED driver batches and from LEDs. MBI5025 samples are now available. Please contact Macroblock at www.mblock.com.tw or email to marketing@mblock.com.tw for more information.