Patent ID: 8042964

Claim:
An illumination device for backlighting an image reproduction device containing light valves, the illumination device comprising: a thermally conductive carrier having a flat mounting surface and a plurality of luminous spots arranged in a grid format on the flat mounting surface of said carrier, each of said luminous spots having a plurality of identically colored light emitting diodes and a submount, each of said plurality of identically colored light emitting diodes of a respective one of said luminous spots being electrically insulated from the others of the identically colored light emitting diodes of the respective one of said luminous spots, each of the identically colored light emitting diodes being connected to different electric circuits, said submounts exhibiting good thermal conductivity and connected to the flat mounting surface of said carrier such that the connections between said submounts and said carrier exhibit good thermal conductivity; and control devices arranged and dimensioned for providing currents fed to each of the electric circuits, wherein said control devices, in the event of interruption of one of the electric circuits for said identically colored light emitting diodes which causes a color shift in the color produced by said luminous spot, control the currents in the electric circuits for the at least one other electric circuit for the identically colored light emitting diodes or for differently colored light emitting diodes of the same luminous spots to compensate for the color shift produced by the interruption; wherein a respective one of said plurality of light emitting diodes of one luminous spot is connected in series with a respective light emitting diode of another one of said plurality of luminous spots and forms an electric circuit.