With 16-bit PWM dimming and 4-channel LED drivers, NSUC1500 from NOVOSENSE redefines cockpit experience

　　NOVOSENSE announced the addition of a new member to its NovoGenius product family - NSUC1500-Q1, a highly integrated ambient lighting driver SoC product.

　　Integrating an ARM® Cortex®-M3 core and 4-channel high-precision current-mode LED drivers, NSUC1500-Q1 provides 16-bit independent PWM dimming and 6-bit analog dimming capabilities, and enables more accurate dimming and color mixing control while effectively compensating for lumen depreciation. Additionally, NSUC1500-Q1 is compliant with the AEC-Q100 Grade 1 and CISPR 25 Class 5 EMC standards, promising high reliability and flexibility.

　　This innovative product allows opportunities to develop more efficient and creative smart cockpit lighting solutions that provide users with more superior visual experience.

　　With continuous advancements of automotive personalization and innovation, vehicles of the future will be more than a means of transportation, but a mobile living space full of human touch and intelligence. The rapid evolvement of smart cockpits has further stimulated strong demand for more intelligent and comfortable driving experience from end-users. In this context, the creation of in-vehicle atmosphere is increasingly valued, as users expect to enhance the sense of immersion and emotional connection experience in the overall cabin through the integration and interaction between the ambient lighting system and other cockpit applications.

　　The role of cabin ambient lighting is also quietly transforming. It goes beyond the traditional lighting and decoration functions, and has become a core element in enhancing the driving experience. By integrating personalized customization, intelligent response to driving conditions, and enhanced interactive features, the ambient lighting system can greatly improve the sense of immersion and ownership for drivers and passengers, creating a unique driving atmosphere for each individual.

　　The NSUC1500-Q1, a highly integrated ambient lighting driver SoC, comes with an ARM® Cortex®-M3 processor core and four LED driver circuits. It also integrates high-precision constant current source, signal control, and LIN interface. These components work together to enable precise current control for each LED, and provide a perfect solution that answers complex and changing ambient lighting design requirements. Additionally, it supports flexible regulation of numerous LEDs. With internal high-precision PWM signals, NSUC1500-Q1 delivers exceptionally smooth dimming and color mixing effects. It also effectively compensates for brightness decay in RGB ambient lights due to temperature fluctuations and long-time aging, thereby ensuring consistent and outstanding lighting effects.

　　High system reliability and effective protection mechanisms

　　NSUC1500-Q1 is a good performer in system reliability, meeting the stringent reliability requirements of AEC-Q100 Grade 1. It also comes with advanced SoC-level LED diagnostics and protection functions. These design features significantly bolster the overall system reliability, and ensure stable operation of the ambient lighting system in a wide range of complex environments, thus delivering a more reassuring and dependable driving experience for users.

　　Outstanding electrical properties and application flexibility

　　In terms of electrical properties, NSUC1500-Q1 demonstrates exceptional adaptability and flexibility. Its LIN port provides reverse voltage withstand range from -40V to 40V, ensuring reliable operation in high-stress electrical environments. The BVDD pin supports a wide withstand voltage range from -0.3V to 40V, allowing it to directly use 12V power from the automotive battery. This greatly simplifies the system design process and significantly enhances the application flexibility.

　　Integrated high-precision ADC for enhanced signal processing capability

　　NSUC1500-Q1 integrates a high-performance 12-bit SAR ADC, providing more precise signal processing support for ambient lighting drivers. In the single-ended mode, its differential non-linearity (DNL) is controlled between -1LSB and +0.8LSB, and its integral non-linearity (INL) is maintained in the range from -1.1LSB to +1.1LSB, ensuring high accuracy and stability in signal processing. In the differential-ended mode, the DNL and INL of NSUC1500-Q1 can range from -0.8LSB to +0.8LSB, enabling smoother and more refined color transitions and brightness adjustments even in complex lighting scenarios.

　　Ultimately streamlined BOM for significant cost reduction

　　With an ultimately streamlined BOM, NSUC1500-Q1 from NOVOSENSE brings significant cost efficiency enhancement and design optimization for ambient lighting systems. Apart from the ambient lighting LEDs, its peripheral circuit requires only five components: three capacitors, one ferrite bead, one reverse protection diode, and an optional Transient Voltage Suppressor (TVS) diode. This streamlined BOM design markedly reduces system costs, and allows a smaller PCB footprint, helping achieve an optimal balance between system cost and performance.

　　Excellent EMC performance and shortened design cycle

　　NSUC1500-Q1 from NOVOSENSE offers reference designs for ambient lighting, with optimized EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) and thermal management performance. NSUC1500-Q1 has successfully undergone and passed all automotive EMC/EMI tests according to the CISPR 25: 2021 standard, meeting the most stringent Class 5 requirements. Its outstanding EMC performance ensures stable operation even in complex electromagnetic environments. In addition, the reference designs tailored for specific applications are carefully optimized and well answer customer needs, thereby shortening the design cycle and saving valuable time and resources for customers.

　　Cortex-M3 core for enhanced scalability

　　NOVOSENSE NSUC1500-Q1 is equipped with an Arm® Cortex®-M3 core, and offers rich scalability, including memory and package options. This not only allows flexible platform development, but also provides a highly cost-effective solution for ambient lighting applications.

　　Key features of NSUC1500-Q1

　　- 32-bit ARM® Cortex®-M3

　　- 32 KB Flash, 2 KB SRAM, 2 KB EEPROM, 15KB ROM with integrated UDS bootloader

　　- On-chip high-precision oscillator with a main frequency of 32 MHz

　　- 35 kHz low-power and low-speed clock

　　- Operating voltage range from 6.0V to 28V

　　- 4-channel high-precision current-mode LED drivers, with a maximum drive current of 64 mA

　　- Supporting 16-bit independent PWM dimming and 6-bit analog dimming

　　- 1-channel 12-bit high-precision ADC with a sampling rate of up to 1.5Msps

　　- LIN PHY supporting LIN 2.x standards and SAE J2602

　　- Supporting various fault diagnostics capabilities, such as LIN diagnostics, RGB diagnostics, and supply voltage monitoring, as well as thermal shutdown functionality

　　- Typical power consumption in sleep mode at 20μA

　　- Compliant with AEC-Q100 Grade 1

　　- Available in QFN20/SOP8/HSOP packages