iWatt, Inc., a leader in digital power IC products and technology, today announced that the iW3610 AC/DC digital power controller for dimmable LED lighting has won the Most Innovative Product Award in the Power Lighting category at EDN’s 20th Annual Innovation Awards Competition. Instituted in 1990, EDN’s Innovation Awards honor the people, products, and technologies that have shaped the semiconductor industry over the past year.

"iWatt's iW3610 meets 21st century requirements with 21st century technology.  Our advanced, patented adaptive digital control technology combined with our advanced analog technology results in another market leading product" said Jerry Zheng, VP of Technical Marketing at iWatt.

“It is an honor to be recognized by EDN as having the most innovative dimmable LED driver IC” said Ron Edgerton, President and CEO of iWatt. 

The iW3610 addresses the most pressing requirements of the emerging solid state LED lighting market; namely, long life, high efficiency to reduce heat loss and smaller physical size with a low bill-of-material cost. The iW3610 is the industry’s first primary side regulated digital PWM controller for 3W up to 25W dimmable LED luminaires that eliminates the opto-coupler required for isolation. The device achieves 5% LED current regulation over line, load and temperature variations for maintaining constant brightness and flicker free operation. Over 80% efficiency is achieved thanks to valley mode switching and proprietary adaptive digital control algorithm that adjusts the switching frequency relative to line voltage. Maximum switching frequency of 200 kHz allows the design of small size transformer and use of smaller passive components to fit the LED driver electronics in space constrained Edison base sockets. Intelligent algorithm ensures that the iW3610 automatically detects the presence or absence of a wall dimmer be it a leading edge or a trailing edge dimmer and allows 2% to 100% flicker free dimming range. The device allows automatic reduction of LED current at high temperature to ensure that the LEDs never operate outside their safe operating area. A 15W dimmable LED driver PCB can be designed with PCB footprint under 30mm x 75mm and only forty seven components for true dimmable retro-fit lamp replacement. The company has successfully enabled market leading luminaire manufacturers to design, develop and release to production dimmable GU10, A-type bulbs and PAR lamps using iW3610.