At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES, Las Vegas, Jan. 7-10, 2008), Microvision Inc. (Redmond, Wash.) will be showing a prototype of its pico-projector, which uses micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) to downsize a digital projector to a palm-sized battery-powered unit.

Texas Instruments has been privately showing a cell-phone-sized prototype of its digital-light projector (DLP), which uses a MEMS chip with a million micro-mirrors to project images. Unfortunately, the company claims it cannot produce its MEMS chips cheaply enough for cell phone makers to use. Now, Microvision claims to have achieved that goal by replacing TI's million-mirror MEMS chip with its own single-mirror MEMS chip, which Microvision claims can be produced cheaply enough to become standard equipment on future cell phones.

"Our MEMS chip is fundamentally different [from TI's DLP]," said Russell Hannigan, senior product marketing manager at Microvision. "TI's DLP dedicates a separate mirror to each pixel, requiring a million micro-mirrors for a million-pixel display. Instead, we use a single mirror to create all the pixels--enabling our device to be much, much smaller and less expensive."

Microvision's pico-projector won last year's innovation award for consumer electronics devices from Frost and Sullivan Research. Microvision has already signed up a few customers: Motorola's Mobile Devices division, for its handheld projector modules; an unnamed automotive supplier for in-vehicle use of its pico-projector; and an unnamed Asian "large consumer electronics manufacturer," for cell phones, digital cameras and personal media players. The company promises to announce new OEM deals in 2008, when it begins delivering its first modules to customers.

By: DocMemory
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