October 23, 2006 – Lumininus Devices, Inc has announced that samples of their new PhlatLight PT120 LED chipset are being shipped to microdisplay projection television manufacturer customers. Several leading brand television and consumer electronics vendors are currently selling PhlatLight based products.

The new chip has been specifically designed to maximize the amount of its 1,500 white lumens output a Texas Instruments 1080p DLP microdisplay chips can project onto a screen. Each DLP chip has array of up to 2.2 million microscopic mirrors which switch incredibly fast to create a high resolution, highly reliable, full color images.

The PhlatLight PT120 is a tri-color (red, green, blue) LED built as a single, large area monolithic chip. According to Luminus Devices, the brightness available from a PT120 chip will be enough to illuminate a 62 inch rear projection television (RPTV).

Solid state LEDs have a number of advantages over the currently dominant arc lamp light sources (UHP lamps) used in microdisplay based televisions and projectors:

• Longer life of up to 60,000 hours compared to a few thousand or so,
• Much faster warm up time than the sixty seconds and over for UHP lamps,
• Improved color gamut (wider range of possible colors – exceeding the NTSC standard),
• Lower power consumption,
• Greater robustness.
• Environmentally hazardous mercury not used.

Further Reading

Read Presentation Technology Review’s article on Novalux’s NECEL Technology Laser Pocket Projection – Novalux’s NECSEL Technology Review.

News article covering a July 31 announcement by Light Blue Optics of Cambridge of the closing of a $2.5 million seed funding round for their mini laser projector system.

LED design is moving rapidly with Seven Times Brighter LEDs Developed by NIST.

Luminus Devices Press Release

LUMINUS DEVICES INTRODUCES NEW PHLATLIGHT™ PT120 CHIPSET

Powerful New LED Light Source Specifically Optimized for
Texas Instruments’ 1080p DLP® Technology

Woburn, Massachusetts – October 23, 2006 – Luminus Devices, Inc. today announced that its PhlatLight™ PT120 chipset is being sampled to its microdisplay projection television customers. The red, green and blue LEDs in the PT120 chipset combine to produce more than 1,500 white lumens under normal operating conditions, enough brightness to illuminate RPTVs up to 62 inches with a single RGB chipset.

While the PT120 chipset is suitable for any microdisplay smaller than 0.7 inches, it was specifically optimized for use with the Texas Instruments xHD5 1080p DLP® technology chipset. The size and shape of the PT120 allow users to maximize the amount of light that can be collected and projected onto the screen.

“Luminus is leading the way in advancing LED technology to new levels of performance. This new chipset is testament to their commitment of offering innovative lighting solutions for large screen microdisplay products,” said Adam Kunzman, business manager for DLP HDTV products at Texas Instruments. “Through our joint collaboration, we look forward to providing our mutual customers with a competitive advantage in the rapidly growing big-screen HDTV market.”

The PhlatLight PT120 is a three-color system that includes a red, green and blue LED. Each LED is a single, large area monolithic chip that can sustain extremely high power and fast pulsing.

“Because PhlatLight LEDs are a solid state light source, the colors can be cycled at high rates,” said Christian Hoepfner, vice president of products at Luminus Devices. “In a DLP HDTV system the red, green and blue PhlatLight LEDs can cycle at 2.9 KHz, which is 48 times faster than traditional television frame rates, providing superior motion quality.”
Another benefit of PhlatLight technology is its longer lifetime. In addition to providing superior color and image quality, PhlatLight LEDs have significantly longer lifetimes than arc lamps. With a lifetime that exceeds 60,000 hours, PhlatLight chipsets will never have to be replaced.

The PhlatLight PT120 chipset is currently being designed into a number of DLP HDTVs that use the xHD5 DLP chip, with screen sizes as large as 62 inches. Several models from various manufacturers will be commercially available in 2007.

About Luminus Devices
Luminus Devices, Inc., headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts, develops and manufactures high performance solid state light emitting devices and systems. Its PhlatLight (Photonic Lattice) technology, developed by Luminus Devices based on research done at MIT, is the most powerful solid state light source available to illuminate large screen projection televisions. With PhlatLight chipsets in commercial production, Luminus is leading the industry in designing this new, powerful light source for a variety of applications, including microdisplay projection TVs and other advanced, high-definition displays. Several leading television and consumer electronics vendors are currently selling TVs with PhlatLight products. For more information, visit www.luminus.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 to large-screen HDTVs and projectors for business, home, professional venue and digital cinema (DLP Cinema®). 75 of the world’s top projection and display manufacturers design, manufacture and market products based on DLP technology. 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 provides razor-sharp images and excellent reproduction of fast motion video. Since early 1996, more than 10 million DLP subsystems have been shipped. For more information, please visit www.dlp.com. Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at www.ti.com.

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For more information, contact:
Bree Clidence or Jill Colna
SVM Public Relations
760-940-9025 or 401-490-9700
bree.clidence@svmpr.com or jill.colna@svmpr.com
Note to editors: PhlatLight is a trademark of Luminus Devices.