Reflective vertically aligned nematic liquid crystal microdisplays for projection applications

Liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) is becoming an established technology for personal viewers and projection applications. However no unique technology is used at present. One has different silicon backplane architectures as well as liquid crystal technologies. Analog addressed DRAM backplanes are often preferred in projection applications, however these architectures often require higher voltage addressing schemes than the standard used 5 V CMOS. Using oblique evaporation of SiO2, a reflective vertically aligned nematic liquid crystal technology was developed enabling the manufacturing of microdisplays for projection applications in a standard 5 V CMOS backplane technology. The developed technology showed acceptable optical performance and might be an interesting alternative to the present used microdisplay technologies.