LEDs are the lighting workhorse of cell phones, MP3 players, and diagnostic lights in telecom systems. Their uses are many, from utilitarian backlighting to eye-catching aesthetic effects such as slowly pulsing multicolor indicators. As device designers strive to differentiate their products on the shelf, the number and complexity of lighting effects grows. It would seem that each new effect requires significant additional hardware and/or complex software, right? Actually, there is a way to apply these effects to a number of LEDs with only a single driver IC.
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