05 January 2008

3M Revolutionizes Mobile Displays
Miniature Projection Technology Available Now

Roughly the size of a wireless earpiece and less than half an inch thick, the 3M mobile projection engine delivers brilliant VGA resolution images and is available today. (Photo: Business Wire)

What we have at the moment embedded in our cell phones!? Internet, e-mail, TV, GPS, Cameras, Video recorders, Dictaphones, Music players, but we still miss something?

The bigger high resolution screen of course, small, two-three inch displays that are common to mobile devices such as cell phones are barriers to growth of exciting mobility markets, because they limit the user viewing experience, projection display solution is expected to eliminate this bottleneck, benefiting consumers, mobile operators, content providers, and consumer electronics OEMs.

For years we've been promised micro-projectors the size of a remote control, a matchbox and even a sugar cube that will liberate visual content from the tiny screens of our mobile devices - but none have materialised onto the market.

Every day, 3M people find new ways to make amazing things happen and 3M is now providing consumer electronics manufacturers with a revolutionary advancement in the emerging field of miniature projection technology.

3M scientists developed a breakthrough ultra-compact, LED-illuminated projection engine designed for integration into virtually any personal electronic device. Roughly the size of a wireless earpiece and less than half an inch thick, the 3M mobile projection engine delivers brilliant VGA resolution images and is available today.

With the expansion of digital media now accessible by mobile devices, consumers need the convenience of larger displays. “3M mobile projection engines achieve the size, efficiency, image quality and affordability needed for consumer adoption of this promising new product category,” said Mike Kelly, executive vice president, 3M Display and Graphics Business. “This development continues 3M’s long history as a global leader in advanced projection display technology. What is really exciting is that this technology is available now.”

When deployed in a host platform, such as a mobile phone, 3M’s technology can project a 40-inch or larger image with no-speckle and a high-fill factor that ensures superior image quality. Each engine uses an advanced liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) electronic imager in conjunction with proprietary 3M optics technology.

We know that Motorola laready working on a cell phone with a build in projector and Texas Instruments's already have an prototype projector phone presented in the video few months ago, it is no clear if we'll see this techonlogy in the cell phone this year although 3M claims that major manufacturers will release devices with this micro-projector built in early this year.