With the innovation of Mini & Micro LED products and the expansion of market share, the mainstream technology competition between COB and MIP has become “hot”. The choice of packaging technology has a crucial impact on the performance and cost of Mini & Micro LED.
01 What is SMD?
The traditional SMD technology route is to package one RGB (red, green, and blue) light-emitting chip into a lamp bead, and then solder it to the PCB board through SMT patch solder paste to make a unit module, and finally splice it into a whole LED screen.
02 What is COB?
COB is the abbreviation of Chip on Board, which means welding multiple RGB directly on a PCB board, then making an integrated film package to make a unit module, and finally splicing it into a whole LED screen.
COB packaging can be divided into forward-mounted and reverse-mounted. The luminous angle and wire bonding distance of forward-mounted COB limit the performance development of the product from the technical route. As an upgraded product of forward-mounted COB, reverse-mounted COB further improves reliability, simplifies production processes, has better display effects, perfect near-screen experience, can achieve true chip-level spacing, reach the level of Micro, and outperform traditional SMD products in terms of high brightness, high contrast, black consistency and display stability. Since COB screens cannot sort single lamp beads with similar optical performance like SMD screens, they need to calibrate the entire screen before leaving the factory.
With the advancement of industry technology, the cost of COB packaging is also on a downward trend. According to data from experts, in the P1.2 spacing segment products, the price of COB is lower than that of SMD technology products, and the price advantage of smaller spacing products is more obvious.
03 What is MIP?
MIP, or Mini/Micro LED in Package, refers to cutting the light-emitting chips on the LED panel into blocks to form single devices or all-in-one devices. After light splitting and light mixing, they are soldered to the PCB board through SMT solder paste to form an LED display module.
This technical idea reflects “breaking the whole into parts”, and its advantages are smaller chips, lower losses, and high display consistency. It has the opportunity to reduce costs and significantly increase production to improve the performance and efficiency of LED display devices.
The MIP solution will use full pixel testing to mix BIMs of the same grade to achieve color consistency, which can reach the cinema-level color gamut standard (DCI-P3 ≥ 99%); while splitting light and color, it will screen out and eliminate defective products to ensure the yield of each pixel point during terminal transfer, thereby reducing the cost of rework. In addition, MIP has better matching, is suitable for applications with different substrates and different pixel pitches, and is compatible with medium and large-sized Micro LED display applications.
04 What is GOB?
GOB stands for Glue on Board, which is a product that people have higher requirements for product quality and display effects, commonly known as lamp surface glue filling.
The emergence of GOB meets the market demand and has two major advantages: First, GOB has an ultra-high protection level and can be waterproof, moisture-proof, collision-proof, dust-proof, corrosion-proof, blue light-proof, salt-proof, and anti-static; second, due to the frosted surface effect, the display of point light source to surface light source conversion display is realized, the viewing angle is increased, the color contrast is increased, the moiré pattern is effectively eliminated, visual fatigue is reduced, and a more delicate display effect is achieved.
In summary, the three packaging technologies of SMD, COB and MIP have their own advantages and disadvantages, but for different application scenarios and needs, it is crucial to choose the right technology.
AOE Video has a full range of products, has many international and domestic patents, has rich project experience in LED small-pitch display, and is committed to empowering more scenarios with a richer and smarter new display product matrix. AOE Video products are widely used in command centers, monitoring security, commercial advertising, sports competitions, home theaters, virtual shooting and other industries.
With technological breakthroughs and the continuous decline in costs, Mini & Micro LED will have great achievements in more fields. The choice between the popular COB and MIP is more about differentiation rather than substitution. We at AOE have different preferences based on different customer needs.
If you have more insights and needs, please leave a message to discuss~
Post time: Mar-16-2024
