IDF Spring 2004: Intel presents Cayley, the LCOS display technology

The "zero day" dedicated to accommodation and authorization of IDF Spring 2004 participants is finished.

According to our Alexander Vorobyev, who represents iXBT.com and Digit-Life.com at IDF, the most interesting event was the presentation of company´s new Cayley initiative based on LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) technology. Unlike DLP that utilizes millions of diminutive mirrors LCOS has liquid crystals located on a reflective surface not as a continuous, but as a discrete layer — to reduce cost price.

Intel´s LCOS technology for flat-panel projection sets allows for higher screen brightness at lower price comparing to other LCOS developments.

Initially the company planned to use this expertise only in comm devices, however the evolution suggested an additional application.

Currently the projection set market is lead by Texas Instruments and its DLP chips. Uusually such devices are over 12" thick costing $2 to $10 thousands. According to Intel, Cayley will enable to reduce the price of LCOS-based HDTV sets down to $1800 already next year.

At Cayley presentation Steve Reed, the head of ecosystem development department of company´s Consumer Electronics Group, demonstrated the LCOS-based prototype as well as the projection chips themselves. The first volume quantities of Intel LCOS chips supporting 720p (1280x768) and 1080p (1920x1080) resolutions are expected closer the end of 2004.

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