History and Implementations
General Electric first demonstrated an LCoS display in the late 1970s. As a "proof of concept" vehicle, it was very low resolution.
The late 1990s saw a number of companies attempt to develop products for near-eye and projection.
At the 2004 CES, Intel announced plans for the large scale production of inexpensive LCoS chips for use in flat panel displays. These plans were cancelled in October 2004. Sony has made it to market (December 2005) with the Sony-VPL-VW100 or "Ruby" projector, using SXRD, 3 LCoS chips each with a native resolution of 1920×1080, with a stated contrast ratio of 15,000:1 using a dynamic iris.
LCoS technology has the potential to enable the manufacture of big-screen high-definition televisions with very high picture quality at relatively low cost. However, LCoS, while conceptually straightforward, can be a difficult technology to master; a number of companies have dropped out of the LCoS business in recent years. Nonetheless, as of June 2006, proprietary methods for mass-producing LCoS developed, and at least four manufacturers produced LCoS-based rear-projection televisions for the consumer market; with the drop in prices for LCD and plasma flat panels, consumers stopped buying rear projection sets, and as of July 2010 LCoS-based rear-projection televisions are no longer being made.
Commercial implementations of LCoS technology include: Sony's SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) and JVC's D-ILA (Digital Direct Drive Image Light Amplifier), and Epson's "reflective 3LCD". Every company which produces and markets LCoS rear-projection televisions uses three-panel LCoS technology,. This is due to the fact that the HEO_5216_MC_5150 is the highest resolution "single chip solution" currently available and is only 1280×720. Sony and JVC both produce and market front-projection displays that use three LCoS panels.
Direct-view LCoS devices such as the single-panel LED-illuminated devices made by Displaytech and Forth Dimension Displays (Dalgety Bay, Fife, Scotland) (formerly known as CRLO Displays) are also used as electronic viewfinders for digital cameras, for pico projectors and within Near to Eye (NTE) applications such as Head Mounted Displays (HMDs). These devices are made using ferroelectric liquid crystals (so the technology is named FLCoS), which are inherently faster than other types of liquid crystals. Displaytech was acquired by Micron Technology in May 2009, which is continuing to develop the FLCoS technology.
Developers and manufacturers who have left the LCoS microimaging market include: Intel, Philips, MicroDisplay Corporation, S-Vision, Colorado Microdisplay, Spatialight, Syntax-Brillian.
Read more about this topic: Liquid Crystal On Silicon
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