Product
Do you often hear discussions about SMD small-pitch displays and COB small-pitch displays? So, what are the differences between them?
In fact, whether it is SMD small-pitch displays or COB small-pitch displays, they all belong to the category of LED displays and are high-tech products that are energy-saving and environmentally friendly. This industry has a market potential of hundreds of billions of yuan worldwide, and 80% of the world's LED displays are produced in mainland China.
LED displays are mainly divided into two categories, SMD technology and COB technology, according to different packaging technologies.
1. In short, the SMD technology route is to encapsulate the three light-emitting chips of red, green and blue in one lamp bead. Its advantages are that the market is highly mature, the recognition is high, the market share is high, and the price is affordable. SMD is currently the mainstream product in the market, mainly used in outdoor LED displays and indoor LED displays with a pitch of 1.2mm or more, such as the mainstream indoor P1.2, P1.5, P1.8, P2.0, P2.5, etc., and the mainstream outdoor products P2.5, P3, P4, P5, P6, P8, P10, etc. However, SMD technology also has some disadvantages: Since the LED lamp beads are attached to the PCB board, their contact surface is small, so in the case of slight touch or bumps during transportation, it is easy to cause the lamp beads to fall off or have poor contact, which is called "black light" or "false solder joint" in industry terms. In addition, due to the limitation of pitch size, SMD technology is difficult to achieve products with smaller pitch. The current mainstream dot pitch is above 1.0mm, and the dot pitch below 1.0mm is difficult to achieve with SMD packaging technology.
2. The COB technology route adopts COB integrated packaging method to replace the traditional surface mount packaging process. It directly encapsulates the three red, green and blue light-emitting LED chips on the PCB board. There are no physical size, bracket, lead and other limitations of SMD light-emitting tube packaging. It can break through the spacing limit of SMD, achieve higher pixel density, and have more flexible dot pitch design. The mainstream dot pitch is 0.3-1.0mm. COB technology has a smaller dot pitch, and the light-emitting chip is directly encapsulated on the PCB board, which makes it have better anti-collision, anti-static, anti-salt spray and other characteristics. The mainstream COB products on the market currently include P0.9, P1.2, P1.5, P1.9 and other models.
Although COB technology has performed well in the field of small pitch, its development also faces some challenges. Since the packaging process of COB technology is more complicated and the production cost is relatively high, this has limited its popularity in the market to a certain extent. In addition, the maintenance and replacement of COB technology is also more difficult than SMD technology, because the light-emitting chip is directly packaged on the PCB board, and once a problem occurs, the entire module may need to be replaced.
However, with the continuous advancement of technology and the expansion of production scale, the cost of COB technology is gradually decreasing, and its market competitiveness is also increasing. In the future, with the increasing demand for higher pixel density and smaller dot pitch display screens, COB technology is expected to occupy a larger share in the small pitch LED display market.
When choosing an LED display screen with SMD or COB technology, users need to weigh it according to their actual needs and budget. For outdoor advertising, live broadcasts of large-scale sports events, and other occasions where the display effect is not particularly high, SMD technology displays may be an affordable choice. For indoor applications that require high definition, high contrast and smaller dot pitch, such as high-end conference rooms, control rooms, high-end retail stores, etc., COB technology displays can better meet the needs.
In short, SMD and COB technologies have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they each have their own place in the LED display market. With the continuous development of technology and the diversification of market demand, both technologies are expected to be further optimized and innovated in the future to provide users with a richer and higher-quality visual experience.