Digital Light Production Technology

DLP Technology

This is new hi-tech projection television improvement. I found this article to be very interesting because it is changing entertainment technology as we know it. This technology provides clearer and sharper images and eliminates glare and gives a wider peripheral view.

1. The semiconductor that changed everything.

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 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 a digital image onto a screen or other surface. The DLP® chip and the sophisticated electronics that surround it are what we call DLP® technology.


2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Applications and configurations
1-CHIP DLP® PROJECTION SYSTEMTelevisions, home theater systems and business projectors using DLP® technology rely on a single chip configuration like the one described above.
3-CHIP DLP® PROJECTION SYSTEMDLP® technology-enabled projectors for vey high image quality or very high brightness applications such as cinema and large venue displays rely on a 3-chip configuration to produce stunning images, whether moving or still.