What is a COB LED Display? A Complete Guide

Today LED screens are everywhere, from streetlights outside your home to the LED displays installed outside of shopping malls or restaurants, you can never escape LED displays. Traditional LED displays are now no longer the preference of the market.

With a huge range of varieties and advancements in LED displays, conventional LEDs are losing their charm. COB LED displays are one such example of new technology in the LED industry.

COB LED display provides several improvements and has already made waves in a few major sectors, including LED display devices and lighting. However, better reliability, power efficiency, and crisp image quality define amazing benefits, several customers are still unfamiliar with this incredible LED technology and the way it works.

What is COB LED Displays and How does it work?

Chip on board or COB LED Display is a type of LED screen that uses advanced packaging techniques. The important feature of COB LED is integrating different LED chips directly onto one substrate, forming a module.

This procedure starts with choosing premium quality LED chips, which then drive conductive or non-conductive used to connect the board adhesive they produced. The chips are integrated through wires, establishing the electrical operations important for them to work properly.

A key feature of the COB screen is the encapsulation procedure. Here, a gel or resin is used on the packaged chips to shield them from environmental elements such as dust, moisture, and mechanical impacts.

This not only protects the chips but also improves light distribution, offering wonderful brightness through the LED display. One of the best things about the COB LED display is its small size, which makes LED chips super solid. This results in incredible brightness and even light dispersion with shadows & contrast seen in other LED types such as SMD and DIP etc.

Moreover, COB Display improved heat dispersion elements, leading to long-lasting performance and better reliability. This makes COB screens particularly ideal for applications where durability and performance are key, such as traffic lighting, marketing, and signage.

Pros of COB LED Display

COB LED screens provide many incredible advantages that make them the top choice in the display market. Here’re some of the notable benefits are –

• Superior Pixel Pitch

COB LED technology captures a major benefit on pixel pitch. It can reach higher resolutions, often reaching up to 4K due to the much tighter spacing between pixels. The higher pixel resolution guarantees that viewers will not see pixelation, even at much closer viewing distances.

The display will appear clear at all distances, therefore greatly improving image quality. This is the reason why COB LED displays are best suited for control rooms, big video walls, and even digital signage. These displays ensure optimal visual experiences for the users due to the tight gap between pixels.

• Improved Reliability

As for other COB LED displays, they are known for their longevity. The chips are directly mounted into the COB LED display’s epoxy resin base, and encapsulated, making the design water-proof and dust-proof. The prevention of moisture and dust entering the display reduces any risk of damage.

Also, fewer solder points mean less possibility of failure in the long run. This is why COB displays are more reliable, especially when used in harsh conditions. With this advancement, the durability of the display is raised meaning that moisture, dust, and even impact can be withstood. This ensures the display’s functionality is intact.

• Energy Efficiency

When compared to older technologies, COB LED technology is superior. This is true especially in terms of cost efficiency as the power usage is least for a long time uses, particularly in big-scale projects. Less energy used also means less money paid for operating expenses.

• Enhanced Viewing Experience

COB displays are much brighter than conventional ones. Additionally, the contrast is better, and instead of distortion cut off angles of over 170 degrees can be accommodated. This results in a better overall viewing experience. Due to all these reasons, they are most effective in controlled indoor settings such as educational institutions, architectural post-production studios, and even 4k video walls. The seamless surface and increased color accuracy ensures extremely realistic images that are also sharp.

Moreover, COB technology allows for better accuracy than SMD in vision applications such as exhibition displays or car showrooms, where clarity and accurate reproduction of color are critical.

Large format displays are more visually appealing when applying COB technology because they incorporate a gapless design, which means there are no seams between the modules. This improves the viewing experience, especially for powerful displays such as digital billboards or enormous video walls.

Drawbacks of COB LED Display

Despite its several benefits, COB LED display comes with a few drawbacks that manufacturers and customers should consider before choosing one for your needs.

• Higher Initial Costs

COB technology tends to be costly right off the bat due to the manufacturing technologies; however, its energy efficiency greatly reduces the costs over time.

• Complex Manufacturing Process

The PCB mounting technique of many LED chips is complex and requires precise engineering, which results in higher costs and time for production than the traditional methods of LED display technologies.

• Maintenance Complexity

Apart from the high efficiency of COB LED displays, there are distinct downsides. Repairing them requires more innovative designs integrated into the LED display. However, with time, these repairs have grown easier.

Differences between COB LED Display and Normal LED

First, you will need to understand SMD LEDs, which, without a doubt, are the most ubiquitous in the market today. The LED chip is highly adaptable, even able to be placed in a smartphone, where it will be used as a notification light. A notable trait of SMD LED chips is the vast number of diodes and contacts they come with, which makes them unique.

More than 2 contacts are possible on SMD chips. One single LED chip, up to 3 diodes can be found, each with its circuit board. An anode and cathode would be used in every circuit resulting in two four or six connections on an LED chip.

• COB LED Display vs. SMD LED Display

Up to three diodes can be packed into a single SMD diode LED chip with each one containing its circuit, resulting in a total of three circuits. Typically, SMD LED circuits have two connections and three chips for red, green, and blue each, meaning that the total number of connections equals six contacts.

In comparison, COB chips contain above 9 diodes as well as having 2 contacts and one circuit, regardless of how many diodes are placed inside the chip. This is why COB LED lights look like panels while SMD LED lights appear to be made of several small bulbs due to the simple design of the circuitry. This reason hints at why COB LED lights are used in places where appearance is more important.

The hypothetical SMD LED chip serves a purpose natively by having RGB diodes that can do much more than just light up. By simply altering the output level, every hue within the light spectrum can be achieved. While COB LED lights are capable of diodes controlling three different RGB color diodes, incorporating color-changing circuits would require too much effort. Due to this, COB LED lights excel in the one-color setting, but fall weak against multi-color uses.

SMD chips are capable of producing anywhere between 50 and 100 lumens alignment, which is readily recognizable. SMD chips lead COB chips in terms of heat efficiency and lumens output per watt ratio. COB chips technically could produce more lumens with lower power consumption as a minimum of 80 lumens per watt is required. It can be found in a variety of bulbs and applications, such as point-and-shoot cameras, and even the flash on your phone.

For SMD LED chips to function, a low current capacity is sufficient, while high current capacity external energy sources are required for COB LED chips.

Things to Consider When Buying a COB LED Display

Here are some key things to keep in mind if you are considering a COB LED:

• Size and Application –Think about the dimensions of the wall and the size of the content to be shown on the display first. Smaller displays are good for close-range viewing, while larger COB screens are ideal for billboards and mounted displays in busy locations.
• Brightness Requirements –The site where you will be installing your display affects the brightness level required. Displays placed outside will usually need higher brightness levels so that they can be viewed clearly in sunlight.
• Resolution and Viewing Distance –Set the display resolution considering how far you intend to sit from the screen. Lower resolutions are suitable for large distances, while higher resolutions suit close-up views the best.
• Maintenance and Warranty –Inquire about the warranty and the maintenance schedule of the display. Since specialized COB displays may require in-depth servicing, it is important to have a professional at hand to reduce downtimes.

Conclusion

The innovation in the COB LED technology enables significantly better and more precise displays. The versatility of the application is extraordinary, whether they are used for large outdoor displays, for infographics inside buildings, or complex workspaces, COB LED displays have a unique quality. The enhanced resolution does come at a cost increase, but people aiming for high quality resolution displays would find COB LED technology to be beneficial in the long run.

If you’ve any more questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!!