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A Digital Micromirror Device, or DMD is an optical semiconductor that is the core of DLP projection technology, and was invented by Dr. Larry Hornbeck and Dr. William E. "Ed" Nelson of Texas Instruments (TI) in 1987. See also list of optical topics. ...
A semiconductor is a material with an electrical conductivity that is intermediate between that of an insulator and a conductor. ...
Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a technology used in projectors and projection televisions. ...
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Technology By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a level of technological mastery sufficient to leave the surface of the planet for the first time and explore space. ...
In music, an invention is a short composition with two or three part counterpoint. ...
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), better known in the electronics industry as TI, is a company based in Dallas, Texas, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology. ...
1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The DMD project began as the Deformable Mirror Device in 1977, using micromechanical, analog light modulators. The first analog DMD product was the TI DMD2000 airline ticket printer that used a DMD instead of a laser scanner.
A DMD chip has on its surface several hundred thousand microscopic mirrors arranged in a rectangular array that corresponds to the pixels in the image to be displayed. The mirrors can be individually rotated plus or minus 10-12°, to an on or off state. In the on state, light from the bulb is reflected onto the lens making the pixel appear bright on the screen. In the off state, the light is directed somewhere else (usually onto a heatsink), making the pixel appear dark. A mirror is a surface with good specular reflection that is smooth enough to form an image. ...
In geometry, a rectangle is a defined as a quadrilateral polygon in which all four angles are right angles. ...
In computer programming, an array, also known as a vector or list (for one-dimensional arrays) or a matrix (for two-dimensional arrays), is one of the simplest data structures. ...
A pixel (pix, 1932 abbreviation of pictures, coined by Variety headline writers + element) is one of the many tiny dots that make up the representation of a picture in a computers memory. ...
To produce greyscales, the mirror is toggled on and off very quickly, and the ratio of on time to off time determines the shade produced (binary pulse-width modulation). Contemporary DMD chips can produce up to 1024 shades of gray. See DLP for discussion of how color images are produced in DMD-based systems. In computing, a grayscale or greyscale digital image is an image in which the value of each pixel is a single sample. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a technology used in projectors and projection televisions. ...
The mirrors themselves are made out of aluminum and are around 16 micrometres across. Each one is mounted on a yoke which in turn is connected to two support posts by compliant torsion hinges. In this type of hinge, the axle is fixed at both ends and literally twists in the middle. Because of the small scale, hinge fatigue is not a problem and tests have shown that even 1 trillion operations does not cause noticeable damage. Tests have also shown that the hinges cannot be damaged by normal shock and vibration, since it is absorbed by the DMD superstructure. Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ...
A micrometre (American spelling: micrometer), symbol µm, is an SI unit of length. ...
A torsion spring is a ribbon, bar, or coil that reacts against twisting motion. ...
Two pairs of electrodes on either side of the hinge control the position of the mirror by electrostatic attraction. One pair acts on the yoke and the other acts on the mirror directly. The majority of the time, equal bias charges are applied to both sides simultaneously. Instead of flipping to a central position as one might expect, this actually holds the mirror in its current position. This is because attraction force on the side the mirror is already tilted towards is greater, since that side is closer to the electrodes.
To move the mirror, the required state is first loaded into an SRAM cell located beneath the pixel, which is also connected to the electrodes. The bias voltage is then removed, allowing the charges from the SRAM cell to prevail, moving the mirror. When the bias is restored, the mirror is once again held in position, and the next required movement can be loaded into the memory cell. Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) is a type of semiconductor memory. ...
The bias system is used because it reduces the voltage levels required to address the pixels such that they can be driven directly from the SRAM cell, and also because the bias voltage can be removed at the same time for the whole chip, meaning every mirror moves at the same instant. The advantages of the latter are more accurate timing and a more filmic moving image. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed. ...
Applications
High-definition television (HDTV) means broadcast of television signals with a higher resolution than traditional formats (NTSC, SECAM, PAL) allow. ...
This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ...
an HMD A head-mounted display (HMD) is a display device that a person wears on the head to have video information directly displayed in front of the eyes. ...
External links - DLP White Paper Library
- DMD Resource
- Emerging Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) Applications
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