Just got access to the WSJ; Perhaps the following is a clue...
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September 20, 1999
Texas Instruments' New Chip
Does Its Tricks With Mirrors
By EVAN RAMSTAD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Texas Instruments Inc.'s digital light processor, a novel chip that uses microscopic mirrors instead of electrical circuits, is nearly ready for prime time.
The first big-screen TVs featuring the odd-shaped computer chips are supposed to be out by late next year. TI developers have spent years -- and hundreds of millions of dollars -- trying to get the technology and the pricing right.
Texas Instruments Says It Will Revise Financial Statements for Two Quarters (Aug. 6)
Texas Instruments to Buy Unitrode in Stock Deal Valued at $1.2 Billion (July 27)
The company still isn't there. But in recent months, TI has announced ventures with Japan's Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. to develop tubeless televisions based on the technology. TI's big-screen projection TVs promise to show pictures more clearly than most current TV sets.
The digital light processor (DLP) evolved from military-supported optical research in the late 1970s. Its long time in the labs underscores how difficult it can be, even in an era of instant Internet riches, to develop and bring to market many new technologies.
Now TI plans to join a host of other manufacturers racing to bring big screens and movie-theater-quality images into people's homes. Traditional TV sets with glass picture tubes become too heavy to be practical when screen sizes pass about 36 diagonal inches. Most of the new sets will also be able to receive clear, high-definition signals that are just being introduced around the country.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. last fall began selling a projection TV based on a liquid-crystal display chip, a technological cousin to the LCD display panel of a laptop computer. JVC Corp., of Japan, is trying to interest manufacturers in a video system that combines LCD chips and cathode ray tubes, the technology in today's projection TVs. But a JVC spokesman said the company isn't ready to apply its technology to consumer products.
A few companies, including Philips Electronics NV, based in the Netherlands, and Japan's Pioneer Electronic Corp., are selling oversize versions of laptop panels using either liquid-crystal or plasma gas technology. While they can hang on a wall, such TVs cost over $10,000 and are likely to remain that expensive for several years.
Some Difficulties
TI is still facing manufacturing difficulties. The percentage of working DLPs coming off the production line is lower than for many of TI's other chips. While the DLP unit's revenue is expected to double to $220 million this year, the production woes have resulted in shipping delays and a sizable order backlog.
A new TI chip, aimed at big-screen TVs, has 1.2 million mirrors that can each move in two positions -- on and off.
The TI chip works when a light is shined at the mirrors and is reflected through a lens to a screen. Software tells the mirrors to tilt towards or away from the light tens of thousands of times a second. The combination of movements forms images and degrees of brightness.
In 1987, scientist Larry Hornbeck designed a hinge that could be built under each mirror to turn it in two directions, which allows the DLP to be instructed by on-off commands, as regular computer chips are.
The first practical application for the chip was in high-speed printers for the military and for airlines, which used them to print boarding passes. But TI's senior managers didn't see a lucrative future in video devices. In 1991, they told the chip's developers to find outside investors if they wanted to pursue that business.
To everyone's surprise, the Pentagon's research arm and Rank Brimar, then a unit of Britain's Rank Organization PLC, immediately invested, kicking in about $6 million. In 1992, TI opened a DLP business unit, which grew to 800 people over the next few years.
In 1993, Mr. Hornbeck and TI executives boasted that the company would be ready to take the DLP to TV makers by the end of that year. But he underestimated the difficulties. For instance, TI didn't solve a problem with the mirrors sticking to the chip surface until 1995. The company also tried to develop too many DLP-based products at once, failing to complete most.
In 1996, the DLP began to make headway in the business-projector market, launching a branding campaign with a DLP logo that touted the processor the same way that Intel Corp. pitches "Intel Inside." The device currently runs about 25% of the video projectors that U.S. businesses use to display computerized presentations.
Cost Savings
DLP engineers eventually figured out how to produce the chip on TI's existing chip lines, resulting in huge cost savings. But even early last year, TI executives expressed doubts DLP could ever be used in display devices costing less than $10,000. Its color quality wasn't good enough for consumers and production costs were still too high.
Then, engineers hit on the idea of adding a layer of light-absorbing black metal under the mirrors, which improved color contrast. They also created a faster way to instruct the mirrors which way to turn, a step that eliminated a color "ghost" in fast-moving images. And, they began experimenting with encasing the chip in inexpensive, easy-to-handle plastic instead of hermetically sealing it in glass.
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