austriamicrosystems announces a new highly flexible Lighting Management Unit for mobile applications

austriamicrosystems (SIX: AMS), a leading global designer and manufacturer of high-performance analog ICs, has announced the AS3676, a highly Integrated Lighting Management Unit (LMU) with Ambient Light Sensing (ALS) and Dynamic Luminance Scaling (DLS). The chip integrates 13 current sinks, a high-efficiency step-up DC-DC converter and high-power charge-pump, an analog-todigital converter (ADC) and a programmable low drop-out regulator (LDO), all incorporated with advanced algorithms for high-efficiency display and keypad backlight, funlight, smartlight and other advanced portable illumination and indication effects.

The AS3676 LMU expands austriamicrosystems' industry's largest mobile LMU portfolio and provides the highest level of integration of any LMU on the market. With advanced technologies, austriamicrosystems' LMU portfolio enables the smallest PCB (printed circuit board) solutions and the lowest system cost. The integration of the main illumination features facilitates controlling all mobile lighting with a single chip. This simplifies hardware and software development time and shortens time to market. The features and flexibility of the AS3676 make it well suited for a number of portable consumer electronic products, including mobile phones, mobile TV's, mobile DVD players, mobile GPS devices, and MP3 players.

With both ALS and DLS supported by the AS3676, power conservation thru automatic adjustment of backlighting and other LED functions is greatly simplified. In addition, built-in features like automatic dimming, pattern generation and audio sync function enable eye catching visual effects with minimum load on the baseband processor.

"The AS3676 LMU features, the performance, and high level of integration provide an all-in-one solution for mobile lighting. The AS3676 minimizes design effort and enables optimized performance with its rich feature set, product differentiating illumination, and power efficient algorithms", commented Oliver Weber, austriamicrosystems'

Marketing Manager for Mobile Lighting Products. "As the next generation of austriamicrosystems' LMU portfolio, with millions in production, the AS3676 is destined to help facilitate customers' success in their markets."

The AS3676 is available in a CS-WLP30, 3x2.5 mm package and is priced at $2.40 in 1000-piece quantities. It operates over a wide 3.0 to 5.5 V supply range, and over a temperature range of -30 to +85 °C.