From...

June 11, 1999
Web posted at 4:30 PM EDT

by David Essex

(IDG) -- 2000 is shaping up to be the year of the microdisplay--tiny, smaller than one-inch LCDs attached to silicon integrated circuits. They'll be used in everything from sunglass-size, lightweight virtual reality goggles to color projectors and 80-inch computer screens, and you'll see the first implementations late this year.

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Thanks to this new technology, called liquid-crystal-on-silicon, displays will become cheaper, thinner, brighter, and more portable, says Chris Chinnock, editor of Microdisplay Report. For example, the new technology could help shave the typical price of a high-definition television to less than half its current price by this summer and fall. You may see HDTV priced in the range of $3000 to $4000 when the first LCOS models come out, Chinnock says.

"The potential is there for really super-sharp clarity," Chinnock says of the HDTV market.

Similar rear-projection LCOS microdisplays will be used to make computer monitors that are sharper and more space-efficient than current CRTs. Front-projection microdisplays will drive overhead projectors and home theater systems, according to Chinnock. Microdisplays are literally miniprojectors and require magnification by special optical devices to fill normal-size screens, he explains.

Microdisplays will eventually end up in pagers and cellular phones, says Jim Bowser, a vice president at microdisplay vendor Three-Five Systems.

Smart phones will have color screens that, when held close to the eye, create the illusion of an 18- to 24-inch computer screen suitable for Web surfing and viewing high-resolution pictures. Microdisplays' SVGA resolution of 800-by-600 pixels is comparable to that of a typical notebook PC's active-matrix LCD, but the displays are six to ten times cheaper, Bowser claims. But sub-20-inch desktop CRTs will still have a price advantage over microdisplays, he adds.

First use: VR goggles

The medical and military communities will be among the first users of new virtual-reality goggles that use microdisplay technology. The first products are expected to ship later this year. Medical personnel will use them to view x-rays and other medical images, and pilots will use them for training and to view flight data on displays mounted in their helmets. By 2000, microdisplays will power cheaper and lighter VR goggles that show more realistic color images in video games.

"The goggles will be much smaller," and some displays will even clip onto regular eyeglasses, says Stephanie Silman, marketing communications specialist at vendor MicroDisplay, which will start shipping "evaluation quantities" to customers next month. Bowser says Three-Five is showing prototypes and hopes to go into production by late 1999.

The next six to nine months will be critical for the nascent industry as competition heats up and vendors work out kinks in their manufacturing processes, according to Chinnock.