Who says you can't be cutting edge and tried and true?
The all-digital display chip
DLP® technology is a revolutionary display solution that
uses an optical semiconductor to manipulate light digitally.
It is a highly reliable, all-digital display chip that delivers
the best picture across a broad range of products, including
large screen digital TVs, and projectors for business, home,
professional venue and digital cinema (DLP Cinema®). It's
also a dependable technology used by leading display electronics
companies worldwide, with more than 10 million systems shipped
to more than 75 manufacturers since 1996.
DLP® technology is in use wherever visual excellence is in
demand. It is also a highly versatile display technology.
It is the only display technology on the market that can enable
the world's smallest projectors under 2-lbs., and light up
the largest movie screens up to 75 feet.
The result is maximum fidelity: a picture whose clarity,
brilliance and color must be seen to be believed.
The Semiconductor that Changed Everything
At the heart of every DLP® projection system is an optical
semiconductor known as the Digital Micromirror Device,
or DLP® chip, which was invented by Dr. Larry Hornbeck of
Texas Instruments in 1987.
The DLP® chip is probably the world's most sophisticated
light switch. It contains a rectangular array of up to 2 million
hinge-mounted microscopic mirrors; each of these micromirrors
measures less than one-fifth the width of a human hair.
When a DLP® chip is coordinated with a digital video or graphic
signal, a light source, and a projection lens, its mirrors
can reflect an all-digital image onto a screen or other surface.
The DLP® chip and the sophisticated electronics that surround
it are what we call Digital Light Processing™ technology.
Digital Light Processing I: The Grayscale Image
A DLP® chip's micromirrors are mounted on tiny hinges that
enable them to tilt either toward the light source in a DLP®
projection system (ON) or away from it (OFF)-creating a light
or dark pixel on the projection surface.
The bit-streamed image code entering the semiconductor directs
each mirror to switch on and off up to several thousand times
per second. When a mirror is switched on more frequently than
off, it reflects a light gray pixel; a mirror that's switched
off more frequently reflects a darker gray pixel.
In this way, the mirrors in a DLP® projection system can
reflect pixels in up to 1,024 shades of gray to convert the
video or graphic signal entering the DLP® chip into a highly
detailed grayscale image.
Digital Light Processing II: Adding Color
The white light generated by the lamp in a DLP® projection
system passes through a color wheel as it travels to the surface
of the DLP® chip. The color wheel filters
the light into red, green, and blue, from which a single-chip
DLP® projection system can create at least 16.7 million
colors. And the 3-chip system found in DLP Cinema® projection
systems is capable of producing no fewer than 35 trillion
colors.
The on and off states of each micromirror are coordinated
with these three basic building blocks of color. For example,
a mirror responsible for projecting a purple pixel will only
reflect red and blue light to the projection surface; our
eyes then blend these rapidly alternating flashes to see the
intended hue in a projected image.
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