CNET’s Road Trip Visits Micron

This week we met with CNET News.com reporter, Daniel Terdiman, while he road trips through America’s mountain west states writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more. We encouraged him to stop by Micron’s Boise, Idaho headquarters so we could talk with him about–and show him–our microdisplays.

Since Daniel regularly writes about what’s best in cutting-edge technology, we knew he’d want to see a pico projector in action. We were eager to show him the technology and get him thinking about what’s possible.

Read the article, “A high-quality projector in your smart phone?“  to learn more about the applications and scenarios where this technology could be used. You may find yourself asking, like Daniel, “When can I get that?”

For more about our microdisplays visit www.displaytech.com.

Will ATSC Mobile make WQVGA the mobile video standard?

Flights, meetings, analog to digital changeovers.  Delays are rarely exciting … and folks in the U.S. saw more than a few delays in the long wait for the cut-off of over-the-air analog television broadcasts.  Finally, after years of digital and analog television signals mingling on their way to an antenna, those ATSC airwaves are a bit lonely. That said, they might soon have some close relatives joining them in the stream if ATSC members ratify the ATSC-Mobile/Handheld candidate standard in July 2009.

This new standard will allow next-generation cell phones and mobile devices to receive over-the-air television broadcasts for free, similar to the DVB-H standard is the mobile extension of DVB-T in Europe.  And to help speed adoption with broadcasters, they’ll be able to use their existing license without modification and be able to use their existing 8VSB terrestrial broadcast stream

So where does WQVGA and microdisplays come into play here?  Well, it turns out that the proposed ATSC-M/H standard calls for a single base resolution of 16:9 QVGA … Wide QVGA.

This aspect ratio not only is a good fit for the designs of newer cell phone screens, but it’s also a great fit for our latest microdisplay panel that we announced last month–our first WQVGA product.  Our WQVGA panel is an integrated solution, incorporating the display panel and control circuitry in a compact all-in-one package. Consuming only 85mW, it’s ideal for applications where portability and battery life is most critical–like a cell phone.

So next time you’re sitting at the airport waiting for a delayed flight, imagine being able to pop out your cell phone to watch some live TV…and projecting it up on the terminal wall to share with your fellow passengers (or an anxious toddler).  That might help make that delay a bit more exciting

Under the Bright Lights at SID

Visitors were impressed to see working displays on the show floor

We’re here in San Antonio at Display Week and have seen some great traffic in our booth–also had some meetings there as well.  The table’s a bit small, but is a perfect size for using an iPhone together with one of our demo projectors to give a presentation.

Most seem quite surprised that we’re willing to use our demo projector out in the open under the bright lights of the convention center, but the projector performed incredibly well in this environment.  The iPhone or iPod touch turns out to be an ideal platform to present from–just export your presentation slides to JPEG and sync with your device.  Pair that with one of our demo projectors and you have an incredibly portable presentation platform–VGA resolution at about 10 lumens using only 1.6 watts. The low power requirements means the battery easily makes it through an 1+ hour long meeting and the light output is excellent, even in a bright room. The high resolution made the text very readable.

The setup seems to have impressed just about everyone that has seen it–especially since we’re not using any covers, hoods and aren’t in a darkened room.  If you’re here at the show, stop by and see us–if not, take a look at the pictures.

Great display--even in a bright room

Will microdisplays change how you interact with the world?

By now you should know that Micron is in the business of microdisplays. It’s exciting stuff.

Researchers and engineers are on the cusp of discovering entirely new applications for microdisplay technology– far beyond simply displaying pictures and movies on a screen. Remember that Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report? Well, the ability to project information onto a surface and manually interact with it, to overlay real-time meta-data on a real-world object is not just for the movies anymore. Really smart people are designing products that can do just these kinds of things—with technology that exists today.

Once you combine microdisplays with other semiconductor technologies – such as accelerometers, image sensors, and wireless network connections– the possibilities are limitless. To get just an inkling of what’s coming, watch this presentation given at TED by Patti Maes – head of MIT’s media lab.

Our New WQVGA Panel

WQVGA microdisplay panels

Today we announced a new microdisplay panel that uses the latest of our Displaytech FLCOS technology. This WQVGA panel provides 392 x 224 resolution in an ultra-small package. It’s an ideal solution for the smallest display and projection applications, like head-mounted displays and embedded cell phone projectors.

Like all our displays, the WQVGA provides bright, saturated colors and crisp images. But what’s most compelling is the WQVGA does it while drawing just 85mW, and it integrates the necessary companion chips—DRAM, LED drivers, and image processing—on the display. Those two key features—size and power use—really separate our WQVGA from other solutions. LCOS competitors can’t match our image quality, and micromirror competitors are stuck with bulky multi-chip solutions that draw far more power (MEMS laser-based displays are far too expensive to even be considered competitors in this segment).

Applications are really beginning to open up, and we’re excited about what our microdisplays can do to drive wide-scale adoption.

View the WQVGA press release

Learn more about our microdisplays at microdisplays.micron.com

Understanding FLCOS Sequential color

We’re excited about the impact we think we can make in the display market. As Bruce wrote earlier, the speed of our proprietary FLCOS technology provides some noticeable advantages in image quality.

Basically, many of our LCOS competitors simulate color by filtering light through closely-placed RGB pixels; we build individual color pixels by quickly pulsing RGB light in place–a technique called sequential color.

Sequential color is a simple concept, but a bit difficult to grasp in text. We’ve put together a quick video to help explain how it works.

Take a look:

Why Displaytech Microdisplays?

You might’ve heard that Micron is designing and marketing FLCOS microdisplays—tiny silicon-based displays that rapidly modify and reflect light to create vibrant, full-color images. They can be used for miniature —a.k.a. “pico”—projectors, tiny viewfinders and head-mounted displays, and a multitude of applications that haven’t been envisioned yet. What makes this so compelling for us is the amazing quality of the Displaytech FLCOS technology we’ve acquired, and how it separates our displays from the competition.

Put simply, our Displaytech FLCOS can switch pixels on and off very, very quickly. So fast, in fact, that we can create color by combining red, green, and blue hues within a single pixel, rather than using separate RGB pixels placed close together (the way most LCOS displays work).

The differences are obvious in the photo below. It’s a real-life comparison of our Displaytech panel’s output side-by-side with an LCOS competitor’s display of the same image. You can distinctly see separate RGB pixels on the LCOS display, as well as how much brighter our pixels are. The end result is a photo-like displayed image with truer colors and crisp edges (which makes our panels great for displaying text—handy if you’re projecting documents or web pages).

Throw in our small

FLCOS sequential color vs. spatial color LCOS

footprint, ultra-low power use, and the ability to work well across a range of temperatures, and you’ve got a top-class product. In fact, the quality of Displaytech FLCOS technology is well established—it’s already shipped millions FLCOS microdisplays—but a small company could only take it so far.

Now that we can leverage Micron’s great reputation and strong, worldwide sales channels into the microdisplay market, the competition will really have to stretch to keep up.