Tracks vs signal planes for high power LED PCB

[amintegia]

Hello,

I am designing a PCB for high power LEDs. I have been looking at some commercial modules and have seen that many of them use signal planes instead of tracks for current transmission. is this recommendable instead of using tracks? In the case where the LEDs have an additional thermal pad in addition to the anode and cathode, will it also be advisable to use signal planes for current transmission, or just use the flat for the thermal pad?

Example of signal plane based PCB attached.

Thanks in advance!

[nctnico]

The big pads are for thermal management purposes. White LEDs (even the tiny ones) can run quite hot and their housing offers no cooling so the only way to get heat away from the LED is through the pins into a large copper area.

[thm_w]

Yes its recommended.
With a thermal pad you'd usually have that as your main copper plane.

You can read more here: https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/optimizing-pcb-thermal-performance-for-cree-xlamp-leds

[T3sl4co1l]

Crosslink for reference: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/685844/tracks-vs-signal-planes-for-high-power-led-pcb

It's not clear what you're asking there, so there haven't been any answers yet.  If you could explain more about what you're doing, or what you want explained about it, that would be helpful.

Here, that doesn't really matter, but you're very likely to get thread drift for the same reason (lack of focus/direction).

I can think of reasons you might still use traces, though most LED applications will eke that little bit of thermal resistance out, hence the pours.  It is not a signal thing.

Tim

[amintegia]

Crosslink for reference: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/685844/tracks-vs-signal-planes-for-high-power-led-pcb

It's not clear what you're asking there, so there haven't been any answers yet.  If you could explain more about what you're doing, or what you want explained about it, that would be helpful.

Here, that doesn't really matter, but you're very likely to get thread drift for the same reason (lack of focus/direction).

I can think of reasons you might still use traces, though most LED applications will eke that little bit of thermal resistance out, hence the pours.  It is not a signal thing.

Tim

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

As I said, my aim is to design a PCB for the use of UVA high power LEDs. As it is widely known, this type of LED are very susceptible to its lifetime degraded by temperature. So I was asking for recommended design techniques to reduce this critical effect.

In my view, the aim of the post was quite clear, as most of the replies have sense with the question I was asking about. However, I will try to be way more clear next time.

Thanks a lot!