Alp

Accessory Light modulator Package (ALP)
The rapid launch into DMD technology Overview

The Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) developed and produced by Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) stimulated new approaches in photonics. Recently, TI introduced the DMD DiscoveryTM 1100 general purpose chipset to support new business areas in addition to the mainstream application of DMD technology in digital projection. Based on this DMD DiscoveryTM 1100 platform ViALUX developed the ALP parallel interface controller for high speed DMD operation. ALP is specially designed for use in optical metrology and is widely open for other applications. When used with the DMD DiscoveryTM 1100 Controller Board (shipped with the package), ALP is a turnkey tool providing free, direct and fast access to any single micromirror. The new product is characterized by its high flexibility for customized solutions. A user friendly application programming interface (API) eliminates the need for any hardware and logic design and the customer will benefit from significantly reduced development time and costs for his own products and a shorter time to market.
Principle of operation
The key part of the ALP parallel interface board is a Virtex-II FPGA linking the on-board SDRAM image memory with the DMD data lines. The user-PC is connected via a USB controller. XGA pattern sequences are loaded into the SDRAM and are then transferred to the DMD by specially designed high speed FPGA logic. Once loaded, the XGA frames can be selected for DMD transfer, repeated or displayed in an endless loop. Triggering is provided in both directions, either the DMD runs in master or in slave mode. Trigger input can be also a composite video signal for example. The DMD access is organized in sequences of XGA frames. The ALP supports both binary pattern sequences transferred to the DMD and the display of time average grey level picture sequences. Data formats can be freely chosen for the sequences in the range of 1...16 bits. The ALP-API allows the user to allocate, load and display XGA frame sequences of different kind and length and loading of data via the USB interface can be done parallel to the DMD display of SDRAM data.
Advantages
For the first time there is a DMD driver electronics optimized for use in optical engineering. The small footprint enables for compact systems and the USB interface will support mobile solutions. A significant property is the perfect linearity of the time average output recorded by a synchronised camera. The convenient application programming interface will lead to short development time and reduce costs considerably.
ALP product specifications

General (DMD DiscoveryTM 1100 board included 250 g) dimensions: 162 x 71 x 32 mm power supply: 5 V @ 2.0 A electric power consumption: 10 W operating temperature: 25 ... 45 C storage temperature: -40 ... 80 C DMD DMD chip: mirrors: pitch: angle: overall efficiency: Synchronisation ALP master mode: ALP slave mode: ALP sequence display min. ON time: max. ON time (no motion): XGA frame sequence format: Table 1: max. XGA frame rate versus sequence bit depth # of bits 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 display rate frames/s 6918 3334 2215 1451 936 557 308 162 0.7 DMD, 12, double data rate 1024 x 768 (XGA) 13.7 m 12 68% for visible light, UV or IR on demand trigger high during picture display, pre-trigger supported, trigger and pre-trigger are programmable camera VD or composite video or any other trigger source, trigger delay supported for retarded start of frame display, trigger and delay are programmable 20 s 10 s 1 ... 16 bit Table 2: XGA frame capacity of SDRAM versus sequence bit depth (min. and max. configurations) # of bits 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 # of frames (512 Mbit) 682 341 227 170 136 113 97 85 # of frames (2 Gbit) 2730 1365 910 682 546 455 390 341
What ViALUX delivers with the ALP package ALP controller board with on-board RAM TM DMD Discovery 1100 board with 0,7 XGA DMD ALP connection board for standard USB cable and power input USB driver for ALP (MS Windows 2000 / XP) ALP demonstration program ALP Application Programming Interface (API) with VC++ libraries (DLL) ALP users manual and API programming samples
Requirements no special hardware requirements, ALP works on any PC or laptop with USB adapter and Windows 2000 / XP operating system
Contact: Dr. Roland Hfling, ViALUX GmbH, Reichenhainer Str. 88, 09126 Chemnitz, Germany phone: +49 371 5397 443, fax: +49 371 5397 417, e-mail: info@vialux.de, web: www.vialux.de

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Accessory Light modulator Package (ALP)

The rapid launch into DMD technology Overview

ALP product specifications

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