Seoul Semiconductor has announced the introduction of CSP (chip scale packaged) LEDs with the name “Wicop” (wafer-level integrated chip on PCB). Seoul describes its new product as “the world’s first package-free LED” and effective in advertising titles “Good bye LED-frame”. 

 

Contrary to traditional LED packages, the newly developed LED’s composition in fact seems to be revolutionary: no gold wire, no frame, no paste and no substrate is necessary according to Seoul. As the company furthermore points out, the package-free LED’s can reach a more than 50% smaller size than traditional LED mid-power packages. The LEDs smaller size reduces the number of LEDs and the size of the PCB within lighting fixtures. This gives manufacturers more flexibility with the design of their lighting fixtures.

Cost saving reported to be another key advantage of the new technology which seems to be reasonable considering the smaller sizes of LEDs and PCBs as well as mechanical cost saving during the SMT-process. However at this point the new technology has definitely a weak point, as few manufacturers are in possession of the assembling machinery for the new LED.

 

Seoul finally points out that the new LED can achieve an up to 50% higher luminous efficacy than traditional mid-power LEDs driven with a higher current. Additional heat can be dissipated easily with a direct path of the LED to the PCB whist traditional LEDs have to go through various thermal interfaces.

 

As Seoul said, its new technology will change the way we have looked to LEDs over the period of “the last 20 years”. It has to be observed to what extend the new technology can be applied within short time and how the LED to PCB-assembling can be resolved.sm.