Patent ID: 8421370

Claim:
An apparatus for driving a light emitting diode (LED), comprising: a plurality of LED units, each LED unit formed of a plurality of LEDs serially connected to each other, the plurality of LED units connected to each other in parallel; a rated current providing unit serially connected to the plurality of LED units, for providing a current to the plurality of LED units under control of a controller; a voltage dividing unit connected between the plurality of LED units and another end of the rated current providing unit; a voltage measuring unit connected to at least one of the plurality of LED units in parallel, for measuring a voltage applied to the at least one of the plurality of LED units; and at least one supplementary resistor formed between the at least one of the plurality of LED units and the voltage dividing unit, wherein a resistance value of the supplementary resistor is set based on the voltage measured by the voltage measuring unit.