Instantaneous electronic ballast for metal halide lamp having state transition circuit

An instantaneous electronic ballast for a metal halide lamp having a power converter for switching the output voltage of a rectifier that converts an AC power into a DC power to generate a voltage having a given frequency within a high frequency region, thus driving the metal halide lamp, a current sensor for sensing a current to be used as current control information of the power converter, and a power converter controller for controlling the power converter in response to the sensed signal of the current sensor, comprising:

• a state transition circuit having a second capacitor, second and third resistors that are connected in parallel, and a second inductor, all of which are sequentially serially connected between the output terminals of the power converter and the input terminal of the metal halide lamp, for supplying a state transition current necessary to shift the metal halide lamp from a glow discharge phase to an arc discharge phase.