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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

#MEMS: "Pico-Projectors Downsized for Cheaper Smartphones"

The world’s largest maker of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) chips announced it has teamed with pico-projector pioneer bTendo to develop the world’s smallest, lowest-power pico-projector for smartphones and other portable consumer electronics devices. Look for pico-projectors to become standard equipment on smartphones by the end of the decade. R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Israel's bTendo marries lasers with beam-steering using micromirrors that combine the illumination from three lasers (red, green, blue) then deflect it to the proper pixel by steering the laser beams in two dimensions—fast horizontal and slow vertical.

Here is what my Smarter Technology story says about MEMS trends: Pico-projectors promise to enable even the smallest-screen smartphones to project 50- to 100-inch displays onto any flat, white surface. Texas Instruments (TI, Dallas, Texas) currently leads with its digital-light processor (DLP), but now STMicroelectronics (Geneva, Switzerland), the world's largest MEMS chip maker, has thrown its weight behind a relatively unknown startup with a novel, two-mirror design...
Full Text: http://bit.ly/NextGenLog-ehPa