[junkcollector]

I got a demo of this technology close to about 10 years ago from TI. Their "killer app" in the lab was a pairing of the DLP with their DSPs to track rain while driving and reduce illumination of rain drops such that glare to the driver was substantially reduced. It was in a lab, but it worked surprisingly well.

Another thing that many people don't realize is that TI makes a huge number of automotive parts currently with extremely tight reliability controls in place for customers like Toyota, as well as established supply chains from silicon to road via companies like Temic automotive.

Personally, I hope TI continues to develop DLP into new markets. The tech is really cool, their miniaturized projectors using laser sources for embedding into smartphones is another demo I saw that would be really interesting if it ever hits market.

[metaphor]

> Another thing that many people don't realize is that TI makes a huge number of automotive parts currently with extremely tight reliability controls...

Any idea how many of those leverage MEMS tech at the scale and complexity of DLP?

DLP complexity + high vibration platform + operating temperature extremes on both ends of the gamut doesn't strike me as reliable by any stretch of imagination.

[junkcollector]

TI makes some MEMS devices for automotive applications, but I don't know of anything in automotive with the type of complexity involved in a DLP. Their mixed signal integrated controls are pretty nuts but not mechanical.

The reason I'm not to worried about reliability is more or less as follows. The fact that TI makes other automotive parts is important because they know exactly what kind of environment these parts will be subjected to, they know how they will be handled when they are assembled from the chips TI ships into automotive boards, and what corners will be cut when those boards are sold and turned into assemblies which are sold and turned into cars. They have plenty of experience in determining what kind of reliability intervals will be required. TI built their first DLPs back in the 80s. They made their first commercial ones in the mid 90's. They probably never turned a profit on DLP until the mid 2000's which is about when they first demonstrated working prototype DLP headlights. They then spent 10 years refining them before taking them to market. TI isn't Facebook, they don't move fast and break things, they are an old school technology company that moves slow and reliable. If they get a reputation for poor reliability they stand to lose decades of investment and future revenue and they know it.

Another thing a lot of people probably don't know is that every TI part that fails in an automotive application gets returned to TI where a team of engineers meticulously dismantle it until they determine the exact cause of failure. They are legally obligated to do this from contracts with auto manufacturers but the net results for TI has been the development of one of the worlds most sophisticated semi-conductor reverse engineering capabilities.