TI Ships DLP Cinema Enhanced 4K Chips

Texas Instruments announced that it has started shipping DLP Cinema Enhanced 4K chips to its licensees, Barco, Christie Digital and NEC.

According to the statement, projectors with the DLP Cinema 4K chip are expected to be installed in Q1 2011 and several industry demos are anticipated between now and then by DLP Cinema licensees.

For more information visit: www.dlp.com


Unedited press release follows:

DLP Cinema® Delivers Enhanced 4K Chip to Light Up The Biggest Screens

Now offering the largest portfolio of resolutions and the industry’s only DCI certified solution

DALLAS, Aug. 30 — Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE:  TXN) DLP® announced today it has started shipping DLP Cinema® Enhanced 4K chips to its licensees, Barco, Christie Digital and NEC. Projectors with the DLP Cinema 4K chip are expected to be installed in Q1 2011 and several industry demos are anticipated between now and then by DLP Cinema licensees. With the availability of this chip, DLP Cinema offers exhibitors the widest variety of stable resolution options to suit their needs at any screen size.

“Regardless of resolution option or screen size, exhibitors can count on DLP Cinema’s award winning technology to deliver all the light, to all the pixels, all the time,” said Dave Duncan, business manager for Texas Instruments, DLP Cinema Products.

DLP Cinema’s 4K chip will enable its licensees to manufacture the brightest and most energy efficient digital cinema projectors in the world.  In addition, all projectors utilizing the new 4K chip will be designed to meet the Digital Cinema System Specifications developed by DCI, LLC for established image quality and security. Currently, all DLP Cinema 2K projector models with the next generation DLP Cinema electronics platform are DCI compliant.

Exhibitors will likely install the DLP Cinema 4K solution to light up theatre screens as wide as 100 feet and 3D screens as wide as 75 feet, which has been a challenge for competing technologies. All DLP Cinema projectors, regardless of the resolution, have the leading attributes for which DLP Cinema products are known, including precise DCI compliant colors, superior contrast ratios including greater than 2500:1 and light output necessary to illuminate the largest auditoriums.

“DLP Cinema remains dedicated to providing the cinema industry with diverse platforms in both 2K and 4K solutions,” said Kent Novak, senior vice president and general manager for DLP Products.  “Texas Instruments will continue to innovate and further the development of its DLP Cinema 2K chips which are indisputably the industry standard, including the capability of upgrading the newest 2K projectors to 4K.”

About DLP Cinema
DLP Cinema is a proprietary technology that delivers clear, sharp, bright and accurate images to movie theatres globally. To manufacture and market under the DLP Cinema trademark, technology licensees, including Barco, Christie and NEC, must meet stringent standards and guidelines meant to ensure the best possible performance and picture quality. This digital picture and standard of excellence ensures that a DLP Cinema movie screening looks flawless and each showing is as perfect as the first with no annoying scratches, tears or weaving that detract from the moviegoing experience. For more information, or to find a DLP Cinema theatre near you, please visit www.dlpcinema.com.

About Texas Instruments DLP Products
DLP display technology from Texas Instruments offers clarity down to the most minute detail, delivering pictures rich with color, contrast and brightness projectors for business, home, professional venue, digital cinema (DLP Cinema®) and large-screen HDTVs. Many of the world’s top projection and display manufacturers design, manufacture and market products based on DLP technology. DLP is the only imaging technology with a legacy in digital cinema where it set the industry standard demonstrated by the deployment of DLP Cinema technology in more than 20,000 screens worldwide. At the heart of every DLP chip is an array of up to 2.2 million microscopic mirrors, which switch incredibly fast to create a high-resolution, highly reliable, full-color image. DLP technology’s chip architecture and inherent speed advantage provide razor-sharp images and excellent reproduction of fast motion video. Since early 1996, more than 20 million DLP subsystems have been shipped. For more information, please visit www.dlp.com or follow DLP on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TI_DLP.

About Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries. For more information, go to www.ti.com.