By Ramon Cazares, Vice President of Digital Projection Sales and Marketing
Since its founding in 1997, Pixelworks has been a leading innovator and supplier of digital projector technology to the business and education markets, as well as home theater systems. The company’s early technology development was focused on scalars designed to support emerging projection requirements. Later, Pixelworks developed more integrated system-on-chip designs by adding analog composite interfaces, then new digital interfaces, connectivity capabilities for interactive features and most importantly horizontal and vertical keystone and warping correction.
In fact, Pixelworks was the first company to provide a single-chip solution for digital projection with its Topaz product line. Today, Pixelworks remains the only company that has a single-chip projector solution, incorporating advanced horizontal and vertical keystone correction, image warping and de-warping, edge blending and image flip and rotation.
Many of the world’s top projector makers rely on Pixelworks’ robust, mature software development kit (SDK) and expert technical support. Currently in its third generation, the Pixelworks Topaz chip and SDK greatly reduce the software resources needed by projector makers, as the solution’s very robust API enables control of effectively all projector functions. Pixelworks also provides reference or test software and GUI controls for more challenging requirements, such as lens distortion correction and edge blending.
The Pixelworks SDK allows its customers’ software investment to be applied over entire product lines from $500 conference room projectors, $2,000 boardroom projectors, $3,000 interactive white boards for class rooms, $10,000 large venue projectors and even $50,000+ projection systems for concerts and major sporting events.
Digital projection technology is now advancing to laser light sources and 4K displays as well as starting to address new market segments including screenless TVs and high brightness pico projectors. New specialty applications are also emerging, such as virtual reality (VR) or smart environments for retail, museums and entertainment venues. Pixelworks is active in these areas and will remain a key technology provider in digital projection for years to come.
Additionally, Pixelworks has unique IP and know-how suitable for complex next-generation display applications, including automotive heads-up displays with high resolution and wide field-of-view requirements, as well as AR/VR displays with image warping and de-warping requirements similar to what Pixelworks delivers to the traditional projection market today.
I’m excited about the continued opportunity for Pixelworks and our digital projection technologies in these emerging applications. Stay tuned for future updates on these developing market opportunities.