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The Monday morning session, which featured several industry analysts,
was a particular favorite. What was interesting was that all agreed
we have big growth opportunities before us in the projection industry,
but no one agreed on how fast the market would grow, which sectors
would be the next engines of growth, or which technologies will
prevail in each segment. Complementing this are two other forecast
summaries from IDC and iSuppli/Stanford Resources, covered in
the Market Intelligence section. Clearly, forecasting is never
an easy or precise job.
Insight Media has also teamed up with Techno Systems Research
to offer a full market study and forecast for the projection industry,
which is now for sale on web site.
In emissive microdisplay news, we note that Planar, which has
been dormant for quite awhile, burst on the scene with a new analog-based
active matrix electroluminescent display. It has some unique features
that provide another alternative for an emissive microdisplay.
Scotland-based MicroEmissive, is showing a new QVGA polyOLED device
it has developed for electronic viewfinder applications.
BTG, a technology licensing company, has teamed up with Ohio
State University in a bid to commercialize a new material system
and device structure for OLEDs. This is a novel approach that
could allow the fabrication of stacked two-color pixels in the
same location. Bias the device in one direction and one color
is emitted, but reverse the bias and a different color is emitted.
Very cool!
In optics and engines, we could only briefly touch on the many
developments. Clearly, momentum is building for manufacturing
for all three microdisplay-based projection systems. OCLI for
example, is expanding its line to include TIR prisms and SCR color
wheels for DLP systems. It is also gearing up for LCOS production
and is offering PBS and ColorQuad assemblies. ColorLink is busy
producing ColorSelect filters and is improving it retarder stacks
to accommodate faster f/# designs.
Other companies, like MicroVue and Philips, are pushing on 1-panel
LCOS systems. Philips is readying its engine for several HDTV
customers, whereas MicroVue debuted an LED-driven single-panel
LCOS TV. To support this, MicroVue and partner PicView have now
agreed to begin the process of building an LCOS foundry in Taiwan.
To reduce projection system costs, smaller panels are needed,
which is why Three-Five and Wavien are showing off three-panel
LCOS demonstrators with 0.5-inch panels. Light output and image
quality is really pretty good.
Screen technology continues to impress too as Reversa now has
flexible rear-screen technology and DNP has improved its screen-joining
techniques.
In electronics this month, we note that Analog Devices has a
new panel driver intended mostly for LCD projection systems. The
AD8381 has been cost reduced by going to a smaller package. At
the same time, Liesegang Electronics has introduced its own image
warping chip that also includes a display controller – something
the eWARP chip from Silicon Optics does not have. In addition
to being able to pre-warp the image to project on curved surfaces
or perform two-axis keystone correction, image warping technology
has the power to reduce projection lens cost be accounting for
distortions in less-costly optics. Powerful stuff.
We also report on yet another innovation from Philips Lighting.
Now, it has developed a small reflector that is coated onto the
spherical quartz bulb that surrounds the arc in the lamp. The
result will be increased collection efficiencies (20 to 30%) for
systems with etendue of 25 or less.
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