<I know, I know, its only a niche market and too expensive because of the screen. But hey, I can dream can't I? >
This might not be that far-out of a dream! I have some literature around the office someplace from a privately-held company based in the Denver area. They are among several companies that are working on "micro-display" technology. This has evolved over the past several years, along with potential underlying markets, such that they have started to offer 800X600 pixel resolution (std. PC and laptop screen resolution) chips. The beauty of the device is that most of the drive electronics is on the chip and they are targeting it to be cheap. They are selling development kits now and have large fab and marketing partners, including Infocus Systems, to produce the parts in quantity. Three characteristics of the device stand out to make it more feasible than other offerings that I am aware of: 1] it has sufficiently high resolution to be attractive today and can be scaled to higher resolution as needed - 1024x800 or other format is feasible. 2] It is capable of very high frame rates - I think the initial devices operate up to 70 Hz. Since these are solid-state devices and each pixel is separately driven, the ill effects normally seen in LCDs are no problem. 3] The IC parts are being priced at about $30 in large quantity. This was said to be a purposeful strategic decision that the company hopes will enable the device equipped display systems to compete effectively against existing CRTs and LCD technologies from the get go. Eventually, micro-displays will be cheaper to produce and use than other display types.
This development has happened sooner than I had expected. The markets are still in the early development stages. but now it is not so fantastic to think that the way people will compute and communicate in the future will be with portable or wearable computers connected via wireless internet. It will almost certainly happen to some degree as many uses will be enhanced. It may grow to replace the bulky, clumsy displays we are used to. The quality, including resolution and binocular (3-D) vision capability may improve to the point that it is vastly superior to flat screen technologies.
If you get some spare time, you may want to search for "micro displays" or other buzzwords. If I find the literature, I'll post their web site. |
