The liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) microdisplay is the most promising display technology for the High Definition Television (HDTV). The existing LCD controllers in the market were always used to interface with video signals, however there is no dedicated video signal processor for HDTV LCoS projector applications. In this research, I designed and implemented a video signal processor for the HDTV LCoS microdisplay so as to enhance the qualities of images....[ Read more ]

The liquid-crystal-on-silicon (LCoS) microdisplay is the most promising display technology for the High Definition Television (HDTV). The existing LCD controllers in the market were always used to interface with video signals, however there is no dedicated video signal processor for HDTV LCoS projector applications. In this research, I designed and implemented a video signal processor for the HDTV LCoS microdisplay so as to enhance the qualities of images.

At first, both the analogue and digital LCD controllers were configured as the front-end video decoders. The video signal processor was designed to bridge the front-end decoders and the HDTV LCoS microdisplay. The double frame rate technique, digital gray-scale technique and microdisplay driving were integrated into this video processor. The correctness of the processor was verified by a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), and the equivalent gate count was determined to be 3200. The whole design was modified and was applied for fabricating a chip by using the 0.6um CMOS process. The equivalent gate count was reduced to 2200, and the layout with 2.6mm x 2.6mm area was made. The operating frequency was simulated and measured to be up to 66.66MHz. The bit-dithering technique was further introduced so as to increase the sharpness of an image. The improved circuit was again implemented with the FPGA and the equivalent gate count was determined to be 3300.

All the implementations could drive the HDTV LCoS microdisplay with resolution 1280x768. The final flicker-free images with 120Hz frame rate were displayed, and the grayscale was improved which meant sharper images were provided.