How DLP Works

Projectors are useless without the image creator. You won’t see anything coming from it without having the image being created to shine through the light. So below will be a discussion of the DLP technology and how it works. Here are some things to consider:

 

·        The heart of the DLP system: What makes the DLP projector work is an optical chip known as the Digital Micromirror Device, or Digital Light Processing chip. It was invested by Dr. Larry Hornbeck when he worked for Texas Instruments in 1987. The chip is unique in that it contains a rectangular array of 2 million hinge-mounted microscopic mirrors. And each mirror is one-fifth the width of a human hair.  

·        Switching mechanism: Because the microscopic mirrors are hinged, they can tilt one way or another. This way when a light source hits the mirror the light goes through. If there is no light, there is no light on the screen. The chip is designed to control the mirrors, depending on the type of signal received. This way the light source is also controlled. Being such, if a picture is black and white, the image will show through with crystal-clear clarity.

·        Then there is color: This system different from all other systems in that when the light source goes through the mirrors it also goes through a color wheel. This color wheel filters the light into red, green, and blue before entering the chip. This way the chip can combine these colors to produce up to 16.7 million colors. The newer chip design being made today triples the output allowing up to 35 trillion colors to be made.