Mar. 05, 2001

With LCD projectors now dominating in the field of presentations, the market for liquid crystal display (LCD) projectors is growing at a rapid pace. Consequently, several Taiwan manufacturers are bracing themselves for this growing business and are preparing for mass production of liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) models in the second half of this year. They will use key parts supplied by Aurora Systems and Three-Five Systems Inc. of the U.S. and JVC of Japan.

An industry insider report says that in addition to LCOS projectors, these local manufacturers are also targeting the huge market for rear-projection TVs, which. thanks to improved image quality along with lower prices, are emerging as a replacement for the traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) TV sets.

The newcomers to the LCOS projector business will join Everest Technology Inc., which began mass producing the devices last year and is now developing a second-generation model for volume production beginning in the third quarter of this year.

Everest Technology officials say that they will also go to Aurora for the LCOS micro displays used in that second generation mode, which will weight only 2,3 kilos, about half of that of the old model. Everest, a young maker of color filters for liquid crystal displays, diversified into the LCOS projector business only last and currently turns out about 1,000 sets a month.

Delta Electronics Inc. Taiwan's largest maker of power supplies, recently announced that it would cooperate with Aurora in the joint development of LCOS projectors, with mass production to begin in the second quarter of this year.

The company plans to upgrade the resolution to XGA (1,024 x 768 pixels ) or SXGA (1,280 x 1,024 pixels ) and would also use these in its self-brand 52-inch rear-projection TV models.

Delta is also developing the production of DLP projectors and announced late last year that it had obtained the authorization of Texas Instruments, the world's sole supplier of DMD chips for DLP projectors for the production.

Delta is the third company in Taiwan to be authorized by TI. The other two are Optima Corp., a maker of LCD products and the computer peripheral manufacturer Acer Communications and Multimedia Inc. (ACM )The company delivered about 30,000 LCD projectors last year.

Delta is building a projector plant in Wujiang, China, where mass production is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of next year.

Another Taiwan firm, the WellSome Technology Corp., will start making LCOS projectors in the third quarter of this year using JVC-developed 0.7-inch LCOS LCD modules with SXGA-grade resolution.

Primax Electronics Ltd., which was set up in 1984 and made scanners and digital cameras so far, has diversified into LCD projectors, communication accessories and information appliances in recent years. It begin developing LCOS projectors about two years ago, and has so far obtained patents on more than 10 technologies and products related to these projectors. It expects to begin mass production of LCOS projectors in the second quarter of this year.