TI explores optical switch thrust with
micromirror devices
Digital Light Processing reaches $400 million in display
applications last year; high-speed networks could be
next focus
By J. Robert Lineback
Semiconductor Business News
(03/05/01 15:20 p.m. PST)
DALLAS -- For more than a decade,
Texas Instruments Inc. has promoted
its Digital Micromirror Device
technology as the highly unusual
silicon chips with millions of tilting
mirrors on a memory substrate. And
TI has gotten its fair share of funny
looks along the way.
But now DMD chips are taking off in
large-area projection display
applications, and they are moving
quickly into consumer televisions as
well as movie theaters. In total, the
light-processing business doubled its
revenues to just under $400 million in
2000, according to TI executives.
While the DMD technology is now profitable in TI's Digital
Light Processing display business, the company is beginning
to push the micromirror technology toward its next
potentially huge market--optical switching in
next-generation communications networks.
TI is looking at integrating multiplexers and equalizers on
DMD chips to offer high-volume ICs, which can replace
today's hybrid optoelectronic components and other parts
used in fiber optic networks. These DMD-based optical
switching chips will potentially roll out of a 200-mm wafer
fab just like any other memory or CMOS product, said TI
officials during an annual briefing with analysts and the press
in Dallas last week.
"This is not a laboratory curiosity now," said TI chairman and
CEO Tom Engibous in a brief interview with SBN. He figures
that TI has made a trillion mirrors overall since the early
1990s.
TI managers told analysts and the press that it has recently
formed a business unit to focus more efforts on optical
networking applications--a segment that has grabbed more
attention in the past year with demand exploding for
high-speed communications. TI's startup business unit is
already offering the company's collection of digital signal
processors (DSPs), analog and mixed-signal ICs, and other
existing products. It is also exploring the use of DMD-based
devices in the high-speed networking arena.
Sources indicate that TI has already demonstrated DMD
optical switching prototypes and concepts to major
transmission equipment manufacturers worldwide, including
Siemens AG in Germany. Siemens wanted to buy DMD
devices, but TI isn't ready to commit to volume production
just yet.
Last week, Engibous was quick to emphasize that the DMD
optical networking activities were still embryonic. "I don't
want to play it up because it's not yet a product, but we're
getting some strong interest in the marketplace for this
application," he said.
The TI chief executive has instructed engineers and
developers to make sure that the potential optical switching
devices are based on the same technology and processes as
TI's existing DMD display chips. "We must insist that we
have a single process technology and not turn this into an
MEM [micro-electromechanical] shop with dozens of different
flavors," he told SBN.
TI is now cranking out high volumes of DMD chips based on
static random-access memory arrays using a triple-level
CMOS technology. The process steps place 16-by-16 micron
reflective mirrors on top of tiny hinges. The motion of those
mirrors is controlled by the memory cells on the substrate.
Micromirrors are titled 10 degrees to reflect light for an "on"
or "off" pixel in display applications.
"The largest device we have currently--the SXGA
[resolution] device--has over 1.3 million individual mirrors on
each device," said John Van Scoter, vice president and
general manager of TI's Digital Light Processing (DLP)
products.
TI's DMD devices are now used in DLP systems for business
projector applications, digital cinema, and consumer
products. TI sold $350 million worth of DLP products in the
business projector markets in 2000, and it claims to hold
90% share in portable projectors weighing less than five
pounds.
In the commercial entertainment segment, TI's DLP Cinema
technology has been developed to emulate 24
frames-per-second film, said Scoter during a presentation at
last week's briefings in Dallas. TI said more than 30 theaters
have been equipped with DLP-based projection systems and
more than 2 million movie-goers have seen "films" using the
all digital technology. About 500 to 1,000 movie theater
systems are set to roll out, Scoter said. Major movies from
Disney, Sony, Time Warner, and Fox/LucasFilm.
In home entertainment, Panasonic, Hitachi and Mitsubishi
have introduced their first DLP-based large-screen
televisions in the North America. They have 52- to 65-inch
displays, and currently are priced at $10,000 to $13,000. TI
officials said the Dallas company is working with TV set
suppliers to drive the retail price tags down to the $2,500
barrier and below.
To lower the cost of DMD devices, TI is now preparing to
introduce a new package, replacing the existing
hermetically-sealed packages that use a gold seal. The new
package will be ramped in to volume in the second half of
2001. TI is also preparing to move DMD production to
200-mm wafers from existing 150-mm substrates. The
company is also working on a next-generation process
technology that will sink feature sizes to a 12-micron pixel
from today's 14-micron pixel in early 2002, according to
Scoter. |
