Heat management of LEDs
- By Ledrise Led Professional
- Dec 15, 2020
The optimal use of a product based on LED technology can be difficult due to an important factor: How the operating temperature can lead to a significant difference between the announced and actual performance of an LED-based product.
Important factors for this effect are LED quality, product design and heat management: how much of the heat generated during operation is dissipated.
If the heat is well managed, an LED-based lighting product will have the announced performance, long life and energy efficiency.
The basics of LED heat management
LEDs use electricity and this process generates heat. This heat must be conducted away as efficiently as possible from the LED in the environment. The design of the LED itself and the luminaire for this purpose is referred to as thermal management. The heat to be dissipated is directly proportional to the luminous flux and power consumption of the LED.
Posted in Shining the Spotlight: In-depth LED Product Reviews and Tests
CSP, or Chip Scale Package, is defined as an LED package with a size equal to or less than 20% of an standard LED chip. The CSP product has integrated component features that do not require soldered wire connections, reducing thermal resistance, reducing heat transfer path, and reducing potential sources of error.
Lets compare the CSP LEDs from leading LED manufactures Nichia, Samsung, Philips Lumileds and Seoul Semiconductor.
Posted in Shining the Spotlight: In-depth LED Product Reviews and Tests
The development of Chip Scale Packaged (Flip Chip or CSP) LEDs is a lighting innovation with several advantages: no substrate, solderless cabling, small size and high optical density.
CSP, or Chip Scale Package LEDs, are 80% smaller than standard LEDs and have all components integrated. This feature does not require soldered wire connections and reduces thermal resistance, the heat transfer path, and potential sources of damage.
Posted in Shining the Spotlight: In-depth LED Product Reviews and Tests
Most of the products and services we use or consume have a unit of measurement. The kilograms of a bag of apples, litters of a bottle of water, meters of a roll of cable, hours of work are some common examples. Modern technology has introduced us to new units: gigahertz of processing power, kilowatts of energy consumption, gigabytes of storage or memory. All have one important thing in common: interested people have easy access to devices of measurement, crucial for quality control or fairness of a transaction.

Posted in Shining the Spotlight: In-depth LED Product Reviews and Tests
The powerful BackMatrix LED modules are designed to provide optimum illumination to large areas. Luminous ceilings, walls or 3D elements will have a uniform lighting in color and intensity, with high spectrum quality and sufficient brightness.
LED lamps, modules and fixtures can be damaged by high operating temperature, with mechanical failure or significant drop of performance being the most common.
How a LED behaves when functioning at higher operating temperatures is directly related to its quality. High quality LEDs, like Nichia or Cree, will function within parameters at high temperatures too, while low quality LEDs will break down, change their color, loose brightness or a combination of these.
Posted in LED 101: Understanding the Fundamentals of LED Lighting
Product lifetime, Light Bulb vs LED
The typical product lifetime of an incandescent light bulb is 1000 hours. When the bulb reaches the end of its product lifetime, it cannot emit light anymore. Typically, just before, there is spark or pop, as the filament inside breaks down.
LEDs use a different meaning for product life. They are the only light sources that over time lose brightness, even up to 90% of initial flux. Eventually, LEDs will also fail completely. However, some emit visible light even after decades.
For example, a Nichia LED with 60,000 hours typical product lifetime will continue to light well beyond the 60,000 hours rated life. Under normal operating conditions, it will even after 200,000 hours.
LED lifetime is the time interval the product can still serve its intended purpose. The time passed until a LED has 70% of the initial brightness is equal with the product lifetime.
This definition, known as L70 lifetime, endorsed by all well-known luminaire manufacturers and sellers.
Posted in LED 101: Understanding the Fundamentals of LED Lighting
Featuring the Direct Mountable Chip technology the new E17A and E21A LED series from Nichia are direct mountable, packageless, chip scale LEDs which reduce total system cost and increase performance at the same time.
The Direct Mountable Chip technology slashes at one major element of system cost: heat management. With thermal resistance of only 0.3 (℃/W junction to Ts measuring point), heat sinks can be smaller or higher performance can be obtained without increasing the heat sink.
Compared with 1-3 Watt LEDs from other manufactures the NVSWE21A (304lm@5000K and 2.1W) and the NCSWE17A (152lm@5000K and 1.05W) are considerably more effective at transferring the heat away from the LED chip.
Posted in Shining the Spotlight: In-depth LED Product Reviews and Tests
As a manufacturer, we want to use the most powerful LEDs in our LED strips and modules. We focus especially on mid-power LEDs that typically consume less than 0.3 watts of power, are fairly small, and require minimal or no cooling. A large part of our products use these LEDs.
Before selecting the most powerful LED for our products, we compared more than a dozen models from leading LED manufacturers: Nichia, Osram Opto Semiconductors, Samsung, Philips Lumileds, LG Innotek, Seoul Semiconductor, Cree, Everlight.
For a meaningful comparison, we have selected LEDs that operate at 65 mA with a voltage between 2.75 and 3.2 V, divided into three groups:
Cold white (5000-6500K), CRI 80+, for linear fluorescent lamp replacement (LED tubes) or luminaires for office or industry.
Warm white (2700K-3900K), CRI 80+, is normally used in LED lamps, linear luminaires, cove lamps, desk lamps, normally for residential and catering applications.
Warm white (2700K-3900K), CRI 90+, with applications in luxury lighting, professional linear luminaires, cove luminaires for the commercial and gastronomic sector.
For each category, we compare luminous flux and luminous efficacy at the usual "laboratory temperature" barrier of 25ºC and more realistic 100ºC. The comparative data are those from the manufacturer's data sheet.
Posted in Shining the Spotlight: In-depth LED Product Reviews and Tests
Linear lamps are light sources preferred in the office and commercial sectors, with billions of linear lamps installed in buldings across the world, operating 11 hours, on average, daily. Summed up, the office and commercial sectors account for near half of the lighting electricity consumed on the planet.
Upgrading this lighting time with LED fixtures should have beneficial results if LED linear fixtures are environmental friendly with focus on energy efficiency, durability, and exclusion of dangerous substances.
The lamps they replace, with fluorescent tubes, are not environmental friendly because of short lifespan, high mercury content and UV light emissions.
Posted in LED 101: Understanding the Fundamentals of LED Lighting