As a growth industry, tremendous cost pressures are pushing the LED lighting market away from traditional power electronics converters and towards solutions that are more unconventional. Lower quality LED lights use simple low-cost converters, whereas high end product may add complexity in order to achieve a more dramatic energy savings.

SIMO technology represents an opportunity in LED lighting to combine the low cost of single-stage converters with the energy saving capability of a two-stage, multiple string solution. This paper describes the modeling, analysis, design, and testing of a Multiple Independently Regulated Output Flyback (MIROF) converter, used in LED lighting for the purpose of multiple string control. This converter is based upon SIMO technology applied to a PFC Flyback converter.

The result was the development of a novel control method and an operational demonstration unit. A cost comparison of the MIROF and a conventional two-stage driver shows a promising cost reduction benefit for the former, and comparative testing shows favorable performance of the MIROF converter compared to the two-stage approach.