LT3743
APPLICATIONS INFORMATION
Programming Inductor Current
The analog voltage at the CTRL_L and CTRL_H pins is
buffered and produces a reference voltage, VCTRL, across
an internal resistor. The regulated average inductor current
is determined by:
IO
=
VCTRL
30 •RS
where RS is the external sense resistor and IO is the aver-
age inductor current, which is equal to the LED current.
Figure 2 shows the LED current vs RS. The maximum
power dissipation in the resistor will be:
PRS
=
(0.05V
RS
)2
Table 1 contains several resistors values, the correspond-
ing maximum current and power dissipation in the sense
resistor. Figure 3 shows the power dissipation in RS.
Table 1. Sense Resistor Values
MAXIMUM LED
CURRENT (A)
1
RESISTOR, RS (mΩ)
50
5
10
10
5
25
2
POWER DISSIPATION (W)
0.05
0.25
0.5
1.25
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
RS (mΩ)
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Figure 2. RS Value Selection for LED Current
Inductor Selection
The recovery time between regulated states is critical
to maintaining accurate control of the LED current. For
this reason, sizing the inductor to have no less than 30%
peak-to-peak ripple will provide excellent recovery time
with reasonable ripple. The overcurrent set point is equal
to the high level regulated current level set by the CTRL_H
pin with an additional 23mV offset between the SENSE+
and SENSE– pins. The saturation current for the inductor
should be at least 20% higher than the maximum regu-
lated current. The following equation sizes the inductor
to achieve a reasonable recovery time while minimizing
the inductor ripple:
L = VIN • (VF ) – (VF )2
0.2 • fS •IO • VIN
where VF is the LED forward voltage drop, IO is the maximum
regulated current in the inductor and fS is the switching
frequency. Using this equation, the inductor will have ap-
proximately 10% ripple at maximum regulated current.
Table 2. Recommended Inductor Manufacturers
VENDOR
WEBSITE
Coilcraft
www.coilcraft.com
Sumida
www.sumida.com
Vishay
www.vishay.com
Würth Electronics
www.we-online.com
NEC-Tokin
www.nec-tokin.com
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
RS (mΩ)
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Figure 3. Power Dissipation in RS
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