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Video Projector on a Chip?
Stile 65 writes "Cornell researchers have made a 0.2mm-squared mirror mounted on carbon fibers that can oscillate at 2.5KHz, 'caus[ing] a laser beam to scan across a range of up to 180 degrees.' These can be mounted on a chip, and in combination with lasers, arrays of such mirrors on a chip can be made into a video projector. From the article: ''"It would be an incredibly cheap display," [Cornell grad student Shahyaan] Desai said. And the entire device would be small enough to build into a cell phone to project an image on a wall."' This display is made possible because of the innovative use of carbon fiber instead of silicon in MEMS. Unlike a standard DMD, this type of device would have one mirror per scanline, not one mirror per pixel, allowing the chip to be much smaller."
Agreed! Although Light Blue Optics Ltd's devices aren't available on the market yet, and they claim to have no mirrors, prisms, or moving parts. I poked around in Feb when LBO announced their laser projector tech. I couldn't believe no one had tried to make a cheap laser/mirror scanning projector. I found some patents on the technology from the 70's that appear to be used by companies doing the "Pink Floyd laser light show" type devices. They just don't understand what they have could be used to kill off the multi-million dollar LCD projector market, home theater, and even win the LCD/Plasma/OLED/etc TV wars.