RCA Unveils Liquid Crystal on Silicon HDTV

Digital television will reach new heights of consumer convenience and image performance later this year when RCA introduces a new breed of super-light, flat-screen television receivers that utilize revolutionary Liquid Crystal On Silicon (LCOS) technology to deliver progressive-scan digital High-Definition television (HDTV) to consumers throughout the country.
Optimized for easy reception of both over-the-air and satellite HDTV signals, the RCA L50000 - a 50-inch widescreen Liquid Crystal On Silicon HDTV display - will be available for purchase the summer of 2001.

Thin, Elegant Lines Define Design Aesthetic
Designed to easily fit into virtually any home environment, the L50000 sheds pounds and inches from the typical big-screen HDTV experience. Even with its panoramic 50-inch wide screen, the new RCA Liquid Crystal On Silicon HDTV weighs only about 100 pounds, or 60% less than a comparably-sized projection TV. And with a cabinet depth of only 18-inches, the new RCA Liquid Crystal HDTV has the same depth as a typical small, tabletop 19-inch television.

The 50-inch display functions either as a sleek tabletop unit or as an entertainment center with its matching stand.

The goal of Thomson's Indianapolis-based design team on the LCOS product is to visually express the excitement and innovation of the LCOS technology in a dynamic new form factor that would redefine the television experience. Because this new Liquid Crystal On Silicon technology is far lighter in weight and smaller in size than today's projection lenses or CRTs, the finished product is not nearly as heavy or as deep as current direct-view or projection TV sets.

The direction that Thomson ultimately developed adheres very closely to elements of "neutral edge" design. The extremely thin and flat front panel is visually suspended above a recessed foot that conceals the front A/V inputs. This, plus a highly tapered rear cover helps eliminate much of the "visual mass" of the product. A unique circular button array serves as a focal point to the design. The buttons themselves are a soft elastomer material arranged as pie-like wedges around a central translucent blue "power" button. The soft-touch feel of the buttons and their simplified arrangement help reinforce the usability of the product.

The LCOS Technology Difference
Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) is a new micro-display imaging technology that utilizes reflective light valves called imagers, assembled with other innovative components to form the heart of the HDTV display - the Light Engine.

Replacing traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) technology, brilliant HDTV images on the L50000 are created in the Light Engine. White light is first generated by an ultra-high pressure (UHP) lamp, processed into a laser-like beam through a series of integration optics, and separated into red, green, and blue (RGB) components by a sophisticated optical prism.

The three light streams are directed to three color-specific LCOS imagers, each modulated with high-definition video signals. The reflected video components are then recombined within the same prism into a single video stream to provide a cohesive, perfectly-aligned digital picture.

Finally, this output is magnified by an 11-element precision optical lens system and the high-definition image is presented on a flat, high-definition screen. The ultra precision 150 micron pitch, high-contrast screen displays images with three times finer resolution than conventional projection TV screens.

Thomson is working with three key partners to bring the new LCOS product line to market - ColorLink, 3-5 Systems, and Corning Precision Lens.

The ColorQuad optical prism designed and manufactured by ColorLink represents the most advanced technology in color management systems for LCOS displays.

Three advanced microdisplay silicon imagers from 3-5 Systems separately modulate red, green and blue light. The colors are recombined, then optics and mirrors serve to enlarge and project the image onto the backside of the screen. The microdisplay imager construction includes a silicon backplane that contains active matrix drivers, and a top glass which are combined into a cell (thus Liquid Crystal On Silicon) that is then packaged for circuit interface and use in a Light Engine.

Illumination and projection optics, and the Light Engine assembly, is coordinated by the advanced optics team of Corning Precision Lens.

Stunning Panoramic Resolution
Thomson's flat matrix reflective light LCOS products ensure sharp, uniform focus across the entire image area. Because of this revolutionary technology, no consumer adjustments to improve focus or "converge" an image are necessary. Brightness is also uniform across the entire 50-inch widescreen, with the center of the screen and the far corners illuminated with precisely the same amount of light.

The L50000 will display up to 2.76 million actively lit pixels, through its 3-imager matrix display. High-definition LCOS images are presented without any scanning lines, and the product can deliver HDTV at full, progressive, 1280 x 720 resolution.

Like each of Thomson's widescreen High-Definition television products, the new LCOS-powered HDTV will include integrated tuning and decoding capability for over-the-air ATSC 8VSB digital TV broadcasts, analog NTSC tuning, standard DIRECTV satellite service, and High-Definition service from DIRECTV.

The L50000 will ship with a convenient "learning" remote control unit that features a two-line liquid crystal display for confirmation of programming and selectable, all-button backlighting.

The RCA line already includes both traditional widescreen rear-projection and widescreen direct-view HDTV models that will be the centerpiece of many celebrations this month as RCA presents the HDTV network telecasts of the AFC playoff games and the Super Bowl. www.rca.com

Source: RCA