Understanding CoB LEDs | Lumileds

26, May. 2025

 

Understanding CoB LEDs | Lumileds

What are CoB LEDs?

LUXEON CoB Finder

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A CoB LED (or chip-on-board LED) is a single device with many LED chips mounted on a thermally efficient substrate placed below a uniform phosphor coating.

Anyone who walks through a store or home with recessed or track lighting likely experiences light from a chip-on-board LED (CoB). CoBs are widely used because they emit a bright white light output from a compact light source and are very efficient in a broad range of applications.

So what is a CoB LED, and how is it different from other types of LEDs?

CoB (chip-on-board) refers to the way in which the LED unit is constructed. The basic elements of white CoB LEDs are:

  • An electrical power supply to provide the energy to drive the LED
  • The light-emitting chip or ‘die’. This is sometimes referred to as the blue light pump, and is made of a semiconductor material, indium gallium nitride (InGaN), which emits blue photons when energized
  • A phosphor coating which converts the blue light to white. The chemical composition of the phosphor is controlled to produce light of a specific color temperature

CoB LED: Space-Saving Array of Multiple LED Chips

A CoB LED is a single device with many LED chips mounted on a thermally efficient substrate, or board. Each chip is a bare die – that is, the chip does not have its own leadframe, phosphor coating or lens. This means that the chips can be mounted extremely closely together on the substrate. The close placement of the LED chips allows for high intensity or light density to be emitted from a smaller area than is possible with single packaged LEDs. The CoB LED manufacturer then applies a uniform phosphor coating to the entire array of chips to convert the blue light to the required white color temperature.

Advantages of a CoB LED

A single CoB LED can contain hundreds of chips forming a dense array. This dense array enables a CoB LED to produce more light output from a smaller area than is generally possible with an array of packaged LEDs.

Using a single LED can result in simpler design and product as well as providing optical advantages for uniform light and efficient optics.

Electrical design is simpler because the CoB LED only requires a single two-wire power supply to the entire array of chips. The positive and negative terminals on a CoB LED are clearly visible in the picture of LUXEON CoB Core Range products above. By contrast, an array of packaged LEDs requires dedicated power supply traces to be routed on the PCB to each LED unit.

Production is simpler because the number of units to be soldered to the board will be lower if a CoB LED is used instead of an array of packaged LEDs.

Optically, a broad range of optics, usually reflectors, can be used with CoBs of different sizes to determine the direction and width of the beam such as with a spot or flood lamp.

Finally, a CoB LED’s color is potentially more consistent because a single phosphor coating is applied to the entire array of chips, whereas in an array of packaged LEDs, each LED unit has its own phosphor coating.

An example of CoB LEDs of various sizes is shown below.

CoB LEDs from Lumileds

A Total Guide To COB-LED Strips - LUXX Light Technology

COB LED Strips stands for “Chip on Board,” or “COB,” is a term used in the world of LEDs to describe the process of putting the LED chip itself in a package that is directly attached to the circuit board (PCB). The LEDs in flexible strip lights also called “Chip on Board” lights, are sometimes called “flip-chips.”

Flip-chip LEDs are very easy to make compared to other types of LEDs. Take a look at a typical SMD (Surface Mount Device) LED. The LED chip is held in place by lamp beads, and a phosphor coating protects the chip from the outside world. The COB LED strip has a “flip chip” that removes all the parts that aren’t needed, leaving just the LED chip, a yellow phosphor cover layer, and connection pads.

The pros and cons of COB LED Flex Strips

After you understand the basics of how this new COB-led strip is made, you can determine its pros and cons.

Advantages:

There is not even a single LED light point because there are no aluminum profiles.

A common complaint about LED strips is that they have light spots along their length. A lighting dot is a spot of light in the strip that shows where the light is coming from. A smooth light source is better than one with faults because it gives off a softer, more pleasing light.

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit COB LED Strip Lights.

Because the bigger diodes are so close, the light from SMD flex strips is spread evenly over the lit area. If the light source is too close to the surface, or if the strip is visible, the human visual system will be unable to avoid the hot spot.

When working with a COB flex strip with 480 chips/M, it can be hard to find the “hot spots” of each chip. Down this strip, the light from it is even and soft. The human eye is more drawn to it, and the environment is better lit when the light is even, and there are no bright spots. The only practical way to see the light source is from the back of the strip, where the flip-chip LEDs are easier to see. To know each led on the strip, the brightness must be reduced to about 5%.

Because the diodes are so small and the weight is spread out evenly along the strip, it can bend much further than other flexible strips. Because these diodes are small and close together, the strip’s surface is never the same. Setting up the strips is easy because there won’t be any loose SMD LEDs to worry about.

Because the chip on a COB strip is soldered directly to the FPCB, it does not have a gold wire. The gold wire inside standard SMD LED beads is the cause of many problems. Because the gold wire is so small, it is easy to break. This is why the chip doesn’t light up.

The COB strip’s circuit is made up of three chips, connected one at a time in parallel, then in series, and then in series again to make one step. Even if two chips inside this one-step strip go wrong, it can still burn. So even if only one or two of the 480 COB chips in a square meter don’t light up, this won’t cause dark spots or make the fixture less useful. Unlike the standard SMD strip, a CUT, this one will only light up if all of the lamp beads are good enough, making a dark area.

Wide degree lighting

The light from a COB light strip can be seen from 180 degrees, while a standard SMD light strip can only be seen from 120 degrees.

The downsides:

The biggest problem with COB-led strips is that the colors are complex to keep the same. Simply put, there is no COB-led strip binning machines on the market now. All current makers of COB-led strips occasionally sample to check color accuracy. Even worse, it’s hard to be sure that every COB-led strip is within a 3-step color tolerance.

The current efficiency of COB-led strip lights is only about 120LM/W. Therefore, there are better choices than the COB-led strip if you want better lighting efficiency.

Using more than 15W per meter of COB led strip’s maximum power is not advised. If the power goes above 15W/m, the chip’s heat becomes tough to dissipate because of the high density of chips per unit of length. This will make COB-led strips last less long.

COB Flex Strips: What Makes Them Different

The benefits and drawbacks of COB flexible light strips should be clear by now, so let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of this product. Some of this may sound familiar if you’re already familiar with LED strips. Still, some critical distinctions throughout this strip type warrant a trial run with the guidelines provided below before you commit to COB strips.

Splice and Join

This strip can be slit using a COB-led strip cutter, as our other strips can. Please only make cuts at the pre-marked 50mm (24) / 25mm intervals on the strip (12V). You can modify the strip’s length to fit your needs or create spaces as necessary. The snipped strips can be reused and are ideally linked through soldering, but we offer COB strip connectors if that’s impossible.

Dimmable

Like traditional SMD led strips, COB led strips can be dimmed.

You can utilize a DALI, Triac, PWM, or 0-10V dimming power source to achieve dimming with COB-led strips.

Conclusion

COB-led strips are a good choice if you want to light up a room without making hot spots. However, only a conventional SMD-led strip is a viable option if you require high lumens, high luminous efficacy, or rigorous color constancy, such as 3-step Macadam color tolerance or 2-step Macadam color tolerance.ere

For more LED strip lights supplierinformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.