The Science Behind DLP Television
DLP televisions are based on a technology invented by Texas
Instruments back in 1987 called Digital Light Processing. The
technology is based on an optical semiconductor called DMD
(Digital Micromirror Device) chip. It is a highly reliable,
all-digital display chip that delivers the best picture across a
broad range of products, including large screen digital TVs, and
projectors for business, home, professional venue and digital
cinema. The chip consists of over one million mirrors to process
light. They come in either single chip or 3 chip configurations.
One-chip DLP systems use a projection lamp to pass white light
through a color wheel that sends red-green-blue colors to the
DMD chip in a sequential order to create an image on-screen.
Only one DMD chip is used to process the primary RGB colors.
Three-chip DLP systems use a projection lamp to send white light
through a prism, which creates separate red, green, and blue
light beams. Each beam is sent to their respective red, green,
and blue DMD chip to process the image for display on-screen.
One-chip models are said to produce a display of over 16-million
colors. Three-chip models can produce a display of over
35-trillion colors. The result is maximum fidelity: a picture
whose clarity, brilliance and color must be seen to be believed.
When a DLP chip is coordinated with a digital video or graphic
signal, a light source, and a projection lens, its mirrors can
reflect an all-digital image onto a screen or other surface. The
DLP chip and the sophisticated electronics that surround it are
what we call Digital Light Processing technology.
Benefits of Single chip DLP:
1. Fantastic color accuracy.
2. The best contrast ratios and shadow detail. 3. Generally very
quiet. 4. Very little space between each pixel creates a very
smooth image, even when using lower resolution projectors.
5. Light engine failures are very rare so repairs are less
costly than other technologies. 6. Technology doesn't degrade
over time. With proper routine maintenance, DLP