LED PWM dimming linearity investigation

LED PWM dimming application for large scale LED video displays is analyzed. The need for short light pulse duration is outlined. PWM dimming with short driving pulses is investigated experimentally. The LED response time skew introduces the nonlinearity for PWM dimming. For LED response time skew estimation, a method is suggested that has been successfully applied to measure some of today’s market representative LEDs. PWM dimming nonlinearity can be forecasted using the estimated skew. For a particular driving configuration, it is indicated that LED PWM dimming fails to satisfy the required 14 bit output coding together with the image refresh frequency of 400 Hz. A rough investigation demonstrates that the skew is quite stable. Therefore, the nonlinearity correction for the PWM pulse durations shorter than the skew value should be possible.