Driver-on-Board (DOB)

Rapid advances in linear driver technology gave birth to driverless AC LED light engines which are essentially driver-on-board (DOB) LED assemblies. While the simple architecture of linear regulators substantially reduces the parts count and volume of driver pack circuit circuits, integrated the high voltage switch arrays to be mounted easily on the same printed circuit board (PCB) as the LEDs. Small, surface mount linear drivers ICs overcome the limitations with switch regulators which have large, reactive components and are therefore cannot be mounted on an LED board, a metal-core PCB (MCPCB) with single-sided copper construction. In linear power supplies, the dropout voltage is simply thrown away as heat. An FR4 PCB which is used to mount SMPS circuits obviously will fail to establish an efficient thermal path to dissipate the waste heat away. Driver-on-board technology allows the driver ICs to share the same thermal path with the LEDs, thereby eliminating the need for d dedicated driver thermal management. As such, DOB becomes the best mouthpiece for linear driver technology as it enables luminaire designers to build a light engine with a low profile form factor while cutting the driver cost to a bare minimum.