Patent ID: 8786348

Claim:
A control circuit of a light-emitting element which controls a light-emission intensity of the light-emitting element, comprising: a rectifying unit which full-wave rectifies an alternating current power supply; a clock generator which generates and outputs a clock signal; a first comparator which compares a comparison voltage corresponding to a current flowing to the light-emitting element and a first reference voltage; and a switching element which is set to an ON state in synchronization with the clock signal and which is set to an OFF state when the comparison voltage becomes greater than or equal to the first reference voltage at the first comparator, to switch the current flowing to the light-emitting element by a voltage rectified by the rectifying unit, wherein the clock generator comprises: a counter which changes a counter value in synchronization with the clock signal; a capacitor which switches between charging and discharging in synchronization with the clock signal; a reference voltage selector unit which selects one of a plurality of terminal voltages as a second reference voltage based on a counter value of the counter; a second comparator which compares the second reference voltage which is selected by the reference selector unit and a terminal voltage of the capacitor, and wherein the second comparator outputs a pulse as the clock signal by switching an output state according to a comparison result of the second reference voltage and a voltage according to the terminal voltage of the capacitor.