Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Texas Instruments - Good buy now or should we wait? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hayduke who wrote (5531)	3/5/2001 8:11:04 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6180

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.