CEDIA 2017

Two years ago Texas Instruments demonstrated a new 4K Digital Light Processing (DLP) imaging chip, or Digital Micromirror Device, the 0.67, that’s just beginning to find its way into home theater projectors from companies like BenQ and Optoma. Here at CEDIA 2017, TI introduced a new, smaller, 0.47 version to supplement it.

Operating at a very high speed, this new 1920x1080 chip can put all of the original pixels in each 4K frame on the screen, though not simultaneously, by flashing 4 times per frame, with each flash showing one-quarter of the pixels. Like the 0.67 chip, which has twice the number of pixels as the 0.47 and only needs to flash twice to get all of the roughly 8 million pixels in a 4K source onto the screen, the 0.47 design employs pixel shifting.

A convincing demonstration compared a prototype single-chip DLP projector using the new chip with LCoS and LCD projectors from well known manufacturers.

The question is, when will projectors using the new chip become available? It took nearly two years from its first press showing for designs using the 0.67 chip to hit stores. TI reps seemed confident that commercial use of the 0.47 chip could happen much quicker, perhaps as soon at mid 2018.