What are Chip-on-Board (“COB”) LEDs?
Chip-on-Board or “COB” refers to the mounting of a bare LED chip in direct contact with a substrate (such as silicon carbide or sapphire) to produce LED arrays. COB LEDs have a number of advantages over older LED technologies, such as Surface Mounted Device (“SMD”) LEDs or Dual In-line Package (“DIP”) LEDs. Most notably, COB technology allows for a much higher packing density of the LED array, or what light engineers refer to as improved “lumen density”. For example, using COB LED technology on a 10mm x 10mm square array results in 38 times more LEDs compared to DIP LED technology and 8.5 times more LEDs compared to SMD LED technology (see diagram below). This results in higher intensity and greater uniformity of light. Alternatively, using COB LED technology can greatly reduce the footprint and energy consumption of the LED array while keeping light output constant. For example, a 500 lumen COB LED array can be many times smaller and consume substantially less energy than a 500 lumen SMD or DIP LED Array.