What Is a Surface Mount LED?
A surface mount LED, also known as an SMD LED, is a light emitting diode which is directly mounted on and soldered to a printed circuit board. Without the leads and surrounding packaging of a standard LED, a surface mount LED is actually quite small, best handled by automated assembly equipment instead of a human. Without the epoxy of a standard light emitting diode enclosure to focus the generated beam, a surface mount LED also has a very wide viewing angle, generally from 100 to 140 degrees. Like a standard light emitting diode, a surface mount LED gives off almost no heat. It also typically has similar low voltage and low current requirements. They are commonly used to indicate device status on computer motherboards, routers, hard drives, USB flash drives and any other application where physical space is at a premium.
