FLC displays for high resolution magnified view and projection applications

High resolution displays using ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) driven by a single crystal silicon backplane are a powerful option for many current and future applications. The FLC light-modulating layer is placed on top of a reflective CMOS backplane. This geometry effectively takes advantage of the fast switching speed and high resolution possible in a submicron thick layer of FLC and fine design rules available in standard CMOS fabs. The microsecond FLC switching speeds allow both gray scale and color to be generated with time sequential addressing. In addition, low temperature performance is remarkable ad showing switching in the sub-50 millisecond regime down to -40 degrees C. Current FLC materials operate well with mainstream 5 volt CMOS as well as with newer 3.3V processes. These lower voltages result in lower power consumption and finer design rules allowing for higher density of on-chip electronics such as MPEG2. This option is difficult to achieve in higher voltage processes typical of nematic on VLSI devices. The reflective quarter wave plate design of the display affords a large angular acceptance resulting in flexibility of optical design as well as excellent contrast and throughput vs, viewing angle. We will describe 24 bit color displays and the FLC mixtures optimized for their particular application.