Liquid Crystal On Silicon - Display System Architectures

Display System Architectures

There are two broad categories of LCoS displays: three-panel and single-panel. In three-panel designs, there is one display chip per color, and the images are combined optically. In single-panel designs, one display chip shows the red, green, and blue components in succession with the observer's eyes relied upon to combine the color stream. As each color is presented, a color wheel (or an RGB LED array) illuminates the display with only red, green or blue light. If the frequency of the color fields is lower than about 540 Hz, an effect called color breakup is seen, where false colors are briefly perceived when either the image or the observer's eye is in motion. While less expensive; single-panel projectors require higher-speed display elements to process all three colors during a single frame time, and the need to avoid color breakup makes further demands on the speed of the display technology.