DLP® Front Projection System
The DLP® technology is a revolutionary display solution that uses optical semiconductors to digitally manipulate light. It is a highly reliable, all-digital display chip that delivers a high quality picture across a broad range of products, including projectors for business, home, and professional venues; and digital cinema (DLP Cinema®). It is also a highly versatile display technology, the only technology on the market enabling projectors under one pound, and lighting movie screens up to 75 feet.
At the heart of every DLP® projection system is an optical semiconductor known as the DLP® chip, which was invented by Dr. Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments in 1987. The DLP® chip is perhaps the world’s most sophisticated light switch. It contains a rectangular array of up to two million hinge-mounted microscopic mirrors; each micromirror measuring 16x16 microns or 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’s micromirror tiny hinges enable it to tilt toward the light source (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.
The white light generated by the lamp in a DLP® projection system passes through a red, green and blue color filter as it travels to the surface of the DLP® chip. After passing through this filter, the colored light then falls sequentially onto the DLP® chip to create an image with up to 16.7 million colors. Some DLP® projection systems including DLP Cinema® include a three-chip architecture which is capable of producing up to 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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