Articles and whitepapers

The Evolution of DLP (4/6/2007)

By Adam Kunzman, Texas Instruments

The story behind DLP technology really is one of evolution and innovation. The DLP chip at the heart of today's televisions, HDTVs and front projection displays was in fact originally conceived for use in airline ticket printing machines back in 1977. In those days, the DLP chip was a deformable mirror device which used micromechanical, analogue, light modulators to create the text for print.

Controlling the mirror operation of light in an analogue way wasn't easy, and after a number of trials it was considered that this would be much more effective if the signal were digital. Ten years later in 1987, the DLP chip that we know today - the digital micromirror device - was created by its inventor Dr Larry Hornbeck.

The step from a micromechanical to microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device was the first leap forward for the DLP chip, and acts as the corner stone on which future progress was built. Now it was possible to combine the chip with image processing, memory, a light source, and optics to form a DLP system capable of projecting digital images.

Texas Instruments employee holding a wafer

We projected our first digital images in 1992 and our product roadmap began four years later with the shipment of our first business projectors. At VGA resolutions, weighing in at a mighty 27 pounds and with an output of 400 lumens it is easy to see how far the industry has come today! However, at the time, market forecast of around 250,000 units per year was an attractive proposition and was fuelled by the removal of transparency projectors from classrooms. SVGA and XGA projection products soon followed.

The development of high-definition display technology

While Texas Instruments was building its commercial proposition behind the scenes, our R&D teams, sponsored in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), were working to create a high-definition display technology. With this backing we developed the first prototype of a high definition display using DLP technology. This projector was even bigger than DLP's first 27 pound business projectors but it was able to create an image of 100 inches at a contrast ratio of 100:1. This development was timely as it coincided with the creation of the US high-definition standard and kick-started our efforts to develop our own HDTV technology.

In 2000 the first DLP HDTV product was shipped. Priced at $10,000 we had achieved a breakthrough contrast ratio of 1000:1 at 720p resolution. Despite the superior picture quality, in comparison to CRT, the price tag was just too high to generate significant business. With this in mind, our R&D teams set a $3000 target price point and produced the first table-top HDTV, half the size and weight of a CRT, which was demonstrated to Samsung at CES in 2002.

Samsung is one of our long-term development partners and at the time were searching for a way to boost their market share in the US. They considered DLP to be the unique solution to do just that. A year after we showed them our first table-top HDTV, the company launched a 50-inch HDTV with a contrast ratio of 3000:1. Priced at $4000, sales exceeded everyone's expectations and have led to successive generations of products and innovations.

The arrival of SmoothPicture

The display market has always been about survival of the fittest and over the years our displays have got brighter and our contrast ratios better and better. We were operating in an extremely price-competitive marketplace and we had to look at ways to help our customers see price points drop without compromising on quality.

We looked at a number of avenues in which this could be achieved and developed a technology - SmoothPicture - which allowed us to reduce the size of the DLP chip. Doubling the switching speed of the mirror gave us a fast way to shrink the DLP chip making the chips and system design cheaper to manufacture. Introduced in 2005, SmoothPicture allowed full 1080p high-definition technology to be supported cost effectively, and we were the first to market with 1080p micro display technology.

Texas Instruments 1080p DLP device

Our ability to adapt to our environment has meant that in TV we now own a 20% share of the US market at 40 inches plus, and more than 50% of the worldwide front projection market. However, the market still remains competitive, if not more so today, and DLP technology continues to change.

DLP slim televisions

In the last few years a number of Asian companies have invested heavily in flat panel infrastructure and made aggressive price moves to reduce the price advantage that we had obtained. In response, we initiated an effort to create a slim DLP optical architecture that reduced the depth of DLP televisions by over 30%. This led to the introduction of the first DLP slim televisions from Samsung.

Samsung 46" Slim DLP HDTV with wall mounting solutions

Solid state illumination

We have also been investigating the use of solid state illumination and were the first to use LEDs as a light source in both projectors and HDTVs. Our first LED DLP HDTV was introduced by Samsung earlier this year and Samsung, Mitsubishi and Toshiba introduced pocket projectors at the end of last year. In both, the conventional lamp and colour wheel are replaced by coloured LEDs to generate the image.

LEDs have much deeper and more vibrant colours and have a much extended lifetime than lamps. We're continuing to develop this technology, and as products containing LEDs reach greater and greater volumes, the price gap between LED and lamps will shrink over time.

LED DLP HDTV offering a wider colour gamut for more accurate and true-to-life colours, low power consumption, high brightness, a contrast ratio up to 4,000:1, and a long-lasting light source of up to 60,000 hours

We're just scratching the surface of the solid state's potential - you haven't heard the last from DLP in this area! We've been the first to market in a number of different areas, our innovation has served us and our customers well and I'm in no doubt we'll continue to do so in the future.

Adam Kunzman is the Business Manager for DLP HDTV, Texas Instruments.

www.dlp.com