An individually addressable LED strip light is a digital linear LED array that has the ability to control every single LED, or discrete groups of LEDs, independent of the circuit to which the LEDs are connected. Flexible LED strip lights fall into two types: the “analog” type and “digital” type. Analog LED strips are non-addressable lights that do not offer the ability to assign color or intensity to each LED individually. The LEDs mounted across the entire length of the strip or on the controlled circuit will respond to on/off switching or dimming control signals in the same fashion. You can change the color or intensity anytime you want for the whole analog strip, but can’t change it for an individual LED or a section of LEDs. A digital LED strip is mounted with individually addressable LEDs that allow the strip to deliver different colors and/or different bright nesses on multiple LEDs simultaneously.
Digital LED strip lights are commonly designed as RGB, RGBW or other multi-color systems, although tunable white, solid white or single color LED strips are available as well. The digital controllability of the strip lights is delivered by addressable LEDs which incorporate onboard circuitry to interpret control signals from a master controller and drive the LEDs in accordance with the commands. Addressable LEDs come with the same form factor and size of the analog counterparts (dumb LEDs) that follow the standard nomenclature for SMD LED packages such as 5050, 3535, 2427, 2020, 1515, etc. A dumb SMD LED is a simple plastic leaded chip carrier (PLCC) package that includes one or more LED chips (diodes) mounted on silver (Ag)-coated metal lead frames surrounded by a plastic cavity. The package provides a platform that allows the LED chips to be mechanically, thermally and electrically interfaced to their operating interface. The LED is operated by an external driver which can be designed to dim the LED through pulse-width modulation (PWM) or constant current reduction (CCR). An addressable LED includes all the components that constitute a standard SMD package, but is differentiated with the inclusion of control circuitry that performs the function of an intelligent LED driver.
at the Open Lighting Product Directory (OLPD)
