Three older posts

Blast from the past. 


Intersil Website  -- yes, that is a picture of Microvision's MEMS.

Post on Reddit about Intersil


Intersil Laser Controller Ready

Intersil purchased by Renesas

Intersil HUD white Paper

Chip Buyout Renesas to buy Intersil

If you've been following along here for any length of time, you may remember in May of this year, and interesting headline about Intersil, and their laser heads up display. They had an answer to a technical question. They have been cooperating with Microvision -- to what degree, and how much currently, we don't know. The word was that a temperature specification had been achieved that would allow automotive laser Heads Up Displays. (It gets very cold and very hot in automobiles.)

So, this purchase is of interest. Not sure what it means yet, but these two companies seem to have some compatibilities -- and it will probably have an effect on Microvision. 

E_Week

Japanese chip maker Renesas reportedly is in the final stages of a deal to buy U.S. rival Intersil for about $3 billion as it looks to bolster its position in the growing automotive technology space.

Reports from numerous news sites this week said the company, which competes with the likes of NXP and Infineon and is seeing other chip makers like Intel and Nvidia pushing their way into the autonomous vehicle space, could announce the acquisition soon.

The deal would continue a consolidation trend in the semiconductor industry as chip makers buy rivals to build out their capabilities and address such emerging trends as self-driving cars, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the internet of things (IoT), mobility and the cloud. High-profile acquisitions in recent years include Intel buying programmable chip maker Altera for $16.7 billion, NXP acquiring Freescale for $12 billion and Avago Technologies grabbing Broadcom for $37 billion in a move to broaden its capabilities in such areas as IoT.

INTERSIL Website

Intersil White Paper on Heads up Display.

This is good. Found posted on message boards


Intersil White Paper  -- Much more at the source.

Conclusion

The laser scanned-MEMS projection system is better suited for automotive augmented reality HUDs than the alternative DLP or LCD frame-based display systems. It has the lowest thermal heat generation, and when a laser HUD scanned image only has 25% to 30% of its pixels turned on, the DLP and LCD HUD will require 100% of its image pixels driven to generate the same amount of brightness (current) as the laser HUD. DLP and LCD systems throw away light in order to display a black pixel, but with the laser scanned-MEMS projection system, a black pixel is truly black because the laser diode is turned off and is not consuming power or generating thermal heat.

The DLP and LCD optical architectures do not fully turn off a black pixel, so there is some level of leakage due to the display panel’s surface reflectivity. This results in a slight bright spot where the black pixels area should be. During daytime sunlight, this envelope might not be an issue, but at night, it is much more apparent. From a driver safety perspective, it becomes another distraction, and tips the scale in favor of automakers moving to the laser scanned-MEMS projection system for their next generation HUD. 

Intersil and MicroVision

A reminder that MicroVision is part of an ecosystem -- and all the parts of the ecosystem need to cooperate for everyone in it to prosper.

I see this as meaning that another critical companion component that we were waiting for is now ready.

See you at the ASM if you're there.

Intersil Press Release

From EE Times

The next generation of automotive head-up displays will offer HD resolution, and it will catapult the information projected to the windscreen into the area of augmented reality. For such data-rich, high-resolution displays, a new generation of laser sources along with the associated electronic environment will be needed. Intersil is now introducing a laser diode driver IC dedicated to such applications. Despite the high current it can switch, the ISL78365 has a very small footprint.

To project HD color images to the windscreen, the ISL78365 is pulsing four high-power laser sources with up to 750 mA, almost twice as high as competing solutions. The high current and fast switching speed of the new Intersil IC enable head-up displays (HUDs) with high resolution, color intensity and, certainly the most important of all, high frame rate.

Intersil Website

Intersil and MicroVision Partner (2012)

"Sep 05, 2012 (Marketwire via COMTEX) --MicroVision, Inc. (NASDAQ: MVIS), a leader in innovative ultra-miniature projection display technology, and Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), a world leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog and mixed signal semiconductors, today announced an agreement to partner on the development of advanced, integrated chipsets (ASICs) for MicroVision's patented high definition (HD) PicoP® display technology. This collaboration is expected to strengthen the technology and business roadmap for PicoP display technology by:"