September 2000

NEWS & ANALYSIS

Laser-Based Theater Presentation Coming This Winter

Photera Technologies plans to be the first company to show a digital movie using a laser-based projection system. The company calls its new system Laser Digital Cinema, which it is developing with several partners and support from an Air Force contract.

Essilor and MicroOptical to Develop Internet Eyewear

The MicroOptical Corporation, which has been developing novel concepts for delivering images to the eye for several years, has now found a corporate partner to help move the technology toward commercialization. Essilor International, a major ophthalmic optics manufacturer, will make an investment in MicroOptical and begin efforts to develop a manufacturing process for the optics to be used in the Internet eyeware. In addition, MicroOptical's early stage investors have also put more funding to the company.

idetic to Work Wireless Infrastructure

Many in the microdisplay community have yearned for wireless handsets that could display full web pages. But until wireless bandwidths arrive to make this less painful, current handsets must rely on stripped-down information that displays on low-resolution screens. Now, the founder of The MicroDisplay Corporation, Philip Alvelda, has started a new company, called idetic, to help build the infrastructure to accelerate the use of wireless handsets with either direct-view or microdisplay-based screens.

Ferroelectric LC Materials Getting Attention

Displaytech has announced it is near completion of an expanded production facility for ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) materials. The new facilities include a class 1,000 liquid crystal formulations clean room, a separate class 10,000 analytical lab and a state-of-the-art purification facility. These new rooms will allow the company to increase the production of FLC materials from 2 kg to 6 kg per year, and will enable the large-scale production of the FLC materials for the company's displays.

Three-Five Sampling Microdisplay Driver ASICs

Three-Five Systems, Inc. says it has completed the development of a set of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) to drive the company's reflective Liquid-Crystal-On-Silicon (LCOS) microdisplays for projection applications. A digital and an analog ASIC are needed to drive each display panel, with projection applications requiring three of these chip sets (ASICs and displays) to modulate red, green and blue light. After a year of development, the chip set is currently being evaluated by Three-Five's customers, and if there are no problems, Three-Five could begin mass production in about 2-3 months.

Mitsubishi to Ship DLP-HDTV for $15K

Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc., one of the three developers of DLP-based HDTV sets, started selling its first sets at an outlet in California at the end of August. Competitors Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company and Hitachi America Ltd., Home Electronics Div. (San Diego, CA), say they will start shipping this fall. But Mitsubishi has surprised dealers by bumping the price up from an anticipated $10K to a whopping $15K.

Kopin Reaches A Million CyberDisplays

Kopin Corporation, reached a milestone in August. It shipped its one-millionth CyberDisplay 320; a 320 x 240 resolution, transmissive liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) microdisplay that is only 0.24 inches in diagonal. Kopin achieves this milestone a little over a year after it launched the product, which is offered in both monochrome and color versions.

New Form Factor for Rear-Projection Demonstrated

Cambridge 3D Display Ltd. a spin-off company from Cambridge University, has developed a prototype of a rear-projection system that has the potential to be as thin as a plasma display panel, yet is driven with a microdisplay. Using a wedge-shaped waveguide and a projection engine, the company has developed an 8-inch by 10-inch prototype to showcase the concept.

APPLICATIONS

Digital Cinema - The digital cinema market is starting to heat up as this month's wrap-up of events indicates. For example, a major juggling of the equation may be underway because of developments at Imax Corporation, a company expected to be one of the leaders in digital cinema. Other companies covered include Texas Instruments, Digital Projection International, Christie, Inc., Barco N.V., Cintel International and Screening Room Entertainment.

Front Projection - Toshiba America Consumer Products has scrapped multicolored projector line it showed at Infocomm in June after building just 15 models. We are not surprised since we were unimpressed with their offerings. There was not much other news to report from a recent presentation to dealers other than the fact that the company says they are working on a low-cost home theater product for sometime in 2001. We also report on Toshiba America, Compaq Computer, Infocus Systems (Proxima), Viewsonic, NEC, Hitachi, Sony and 3M.

DLP/LCD Rear-Projection - Along with Mitsubishi we report on Sim 2 Seleco and its Videowall systems.

CRT-Based Rear Projection - It seems that consumers are starting to show their preference in one aspect of current HDTV models. We cover Philips, Pioneer and Toshiba.

Headsets - Microvision will supply an additional HMD for the Army's Virtual Cockpit Optimization Program (VCOP). Also covered in this section are Vision Systems, Liteye Microdisplay Systems, Planar and MicroOptical.

3-D Systems - There is no doubt that 3D is coming to many different venues in the near future. What is less clear is which type will dominate. For example, 3D images can be rendered more and more effectively on a 2D screen. Graphics companies refer to this as 3D, which can lead to some confusion. We break this down for you with news and notes from SteroGraphics, i-O Display Systems, Dimension Technologies, Chequemate International, Isee3d, 3DV Systems, Vision-Sciences, NYU, Hiedeki Kakeya, Nippon Telegraph, VisuaLABS. and Plus Corporation

MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Channels Attract UK Audience to Digital TV
LCD TVs Gain Momentum
Digital Beats Film for the First Time in Japan
U.S Digital Camera Sales Still Rising
50% Growth in the Virtual Reality Market
Spending for TFT-LCD Equipment and Materials to Exceed $108B by 2005
Samsung Leads Notebook PC Market

BOTTOM LINE

Integral Vision Betting on New Products
Major Growth for MUSE
Genesis Microchip Reports Q1'01 Results
CAE Earnings Up Sharply

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Michael Vitelli, Michael D. Malcy, Sarah Minett, Jalil Shaikh, Mike Garrido are all in the news.