Overview

"Our Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards have always honored the innovators that move our industry forward."

Peter O. Price, President of the National Television Academy on the Emmy Award to Texas Instrument's Digital Light Processing (DLP) Technology, October 2003.

The penetration of MEMS technology in photonic applications is one that evokes in many minds stories of success. What made MEMS successful is that in many instances, it enabled new functionality by miniaturizing and arraying optical elements. Two notable markets and applications have benefited greatly from MEMS: displays and optical fiber communications. In displays, the Digital Light Processing (DLP ) technology from Texas Instruments of Dallas, Texas, has become a standard in small- and large-screen projection of digital images, with the Digital Mirror Device (DMD) at its core. In fiber-optical communications, there are a myriad of MEMS-based components in tunable lasers, optical switches, and optical attenuators, all key elements in transmitting data through optical fibers. But in hearing these success stories, one should not forget that the systems that are enabled by these MEMS-based components are very complex and encompass in their operation a multitude of technologies, with MEMS being just one of them. It is the convergence of all of these technologies that makes them collectively a success.