Comparison And Differences Between LED Technologies

The widespread use of DIP LEDs came about due to their long life-span and intense brightness. DIP LEDs are highly recognizable by their “pill” or “bullet” shaped design (≤5mm wide), and the long contacts that extend from the bottom of the LED which can be easily soldered or inserted into a bread board. The LED’s plastic and epoxy casing actually serves as a lens that can focus the light coming from the diode. The shape of the outer casing also includes a flat edge on one side that always indicates the cathode side of DIP LEDs. These lights, when used for residential or home use, are typically found in electronics as indicator lights because of their low cost, high brightness, and ease of install. DIP Diodes can be bought in bulk by electronics manufacturers to fulfill many purposes; and because of their plug-and-play nature, can be easily soldered to any kind of circuit board. This gives electronic devices the ability to send information to the user without the need for an actual display on the device. These LEDs will typically produce between 3 and 4 lumens per LED. They typically run at between 5v to 24v, with 12v being the most common voltage. They individually pull between 0.05 and 0.08 watts. This generates between 35 and 80 lumens per watt, depending on the actual LED.   

Because they are very bright and can change colors, these chips are used extensively for LED strip lights and light bulbs. SMD LED chips come in a wide variety of sizes, the most common of which are SMD 3528 and SMD 5050S.  SMD 3528 chips are only 3.5mm wide, and SMD 5050 chips are 5 mm wide.  SMD LEDs can also be made much smaller than the 3528 and 5050 chips. Some of these chips are made very small, to go in high end electronics such as cell phones and laptop computers as indicator lights. Any cell phone you see that has a little light that stays on after the screen turns off is powered by a small SMD LED. SMD chips that we see in light bulbs and strip lights will typically produce between 4 to 5 lumens per diode on a chip (such as a 3528, single diode chip). These chips will typically run at either 12v or 24v, with 12v being the most common. Individually these chips can pull between 0.05w to 0.08w (single diode, 3528) up to between 0.15w to .24w (three diode, 5050). This means these chips can produce between 50 and 100 lumens per watt depending on the particular chip.  

On every COB chip there are multiple diodes; typically 9 or more. The other big difference between COB and SMD technology lies in the fact that while SMD requires a circuit for every diode included on the chip, COB devices only have 1 circuit and 2 contacts for the entire chip regardless of the number of diodes. This single circuit design, regardless of the number of diodes on the chip, leads to simplicity for the rest of any COB LED device. 

Perhaps even more important than the simplicity aspect, COB also leads to improved lumen-per-watt ratios in comparison to other LED technologies such as DIP and SMD. Unfortunately, the big draw back from the single circuit design of COB chips stems from the fact that multiple channels are necessary to adjust individual levels of light output to create color changing effects. What this basically means is that COB technology, while very powerful and efficient in single-color applications, cannot be used to create color changing bulbs or lights. 

Before COB technology, LED spot lights and flood lights were historically considered “non-standard lamps” because they required multiple LED sources to produce a high lumen output. Since the advent of COB chips in the LED arena, a large lumen count can be produced from a single source using a COB chip. This was never possible before COB, but has been a revolution for people who want to lower their energy bill but also need a standard lamp. Besides spot lights and floodlights, COB chips have been put into all kinds of bulbs and used for a number of other applications as well. In fact, COB technology is used for any small device with a flash such as a Smartphone or camera. The principle is that COB chips produces a large amount of lumens for very little energy, which is very important for any device that runs on a battery. Many Smartphones have a small 2×2 or 3×3 COB matrix to produce their camera flash. Point-and-shoot cameras similarly support a small COB chip that will use little energy and produce a large amount of light. COB chips vary widely in their applications and thus different chips will require different wattage, voltage, and will produce vastly different lumen counts. However, it can be said of COB chips that the ratio of lumens per watt is very high, typically 80 lumens per watt minimum to well over 100 lumen per watt. O

MCOB devices differ from COB because they are better for low wattage situations. They also do not fulfill the standard lamp requirement for spot light and floodlights, as mentioned earlier in the COB section of this post. While MCOB devices do not meet the requirements to become a standard lamp, they produce a lot of light and are great for low wattage situations like A19 bulbs. In fact, A19 bulbs are currently the most common use of MCOB technology. If you buy an LED A19 bulb in the near future, it will likely be an MCOB bulb. MCOB is a very new technology at this point that not many manufacturers are producing, but it will likely catch on for much more than just A19 bulbs. There are many applications for a high lumen count that MCOB can fulfill, and likely innovators will use the technology to create new products that the market has never seen before. 

Flip-chip not only shortens the production process which lead to cost reduction, but also significantly reduce thermal resistance and result in higher heat dissipation rate than in the traditional golden wire bonding COB LED. Meanwhile, FC LED’s smaller and square design makes its light beam more focused. 

Flip-chip not only shortens the production process which lead to cost reduction, but also significantly reduce thermal resistance and result in higher heat dissipation rate than in the traditional golden wire bonding COB LED. Meanwhile, FC LED’s smaller and square design makes its light beam more focused.