It’s reported that PREMA Semiconductor GmbH, is located in Mainz, Germany, has designed 10-channel LED driver dubbed the PR4010 that drives up to 10 LEDs of any color individually.
For more than 10 LEDs, several PR4010 can be cascaded and programmed via one serial interface, typical applications are driving dot matrix or LED segment displays. For example, the PR4010 can drive 75 LEDs of a mulitplexed 15x5 dot matrix display with only two PR4010 and five additional transistors. Each of the 10 LED driver outputs is a current sink for up to 10mA. The serial interface with latched input allows individual programming of each LED channel by an external microcontroller. Further applications are LED displays like bargraphs or status displays. The PR4010 is designed in a SSOP20 package, samples are available upon request.
According to the company, the current variation between the LED channels does not exceed ±5%; uniform control is guaranteed, LED brightness is set by an external resistor; it can be varied through a PWM signal at the "blank" input, which allows ON / OFF control for all channels independent of the serial interface. The PR4010 has been designed for supply voltages from 3V up to 5.5V.
