Mirrors made of silicon, the material used to make computer chips, are at the heart of a truly flat television screen that is bigger but lighter than conventional cathode ray tubes.
The biggest telev…
Mirrors made of silicon, the material used to make computer chips, are at the heart of a truly flat television screen that is bigger but lighter than conventional cathode ray tubes. The biggest television sets on the market today have a 33-inch screen, but the massive glass tubes inside bring their weight up to about 160 pounds and the depth to around 30 inches. By 1997, Nokia, the Finnish television maker, aims to produce a 50-inch screen weighing approximately 60 pounds, half the weight of screens on the market today, and only 15 inches deep, using a technology known as Digital Light Processing (DLP), developed by the American chip manufacturer Texas Instruments. The prototype was unveiled in Brussels in October 1995. In the DLP set, light is projected on to a silicon chip the size of a postage stamp, which has an array of half a million mirrors etched on to its upper surface, each individually pivoted so it can reflect light on to or away from the screen. The mirrors represent the pixels or picture points that make up a conventional television display, and are controlled by digital signals which cause them to switch position. The DLP system offers a number of advantages over other flat screen systems, such as liquid crystal displays. The chips can be mass produced to reduce cost, and the images they create are bright and clear. They also have a wide viewing angle. A number of companies are planning to use DLP technology for a new generation of flat screen televisions and video projectors. Companies in the video projection industry, such as Proxima, InFocus, nView and Rank Brimar, also plan to use DLP technology. Other applications include home cinema and mini auditorium systems. Nokia says its flat screen sets, due in 1997, will be competitively priced.