LONDON — Philips 3D Solutions, a subsidiary of Royal Philips Electronics NV (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), has announced it is working on a graphics chip to drive flat displays to give three dimensional images on cell phones. It would do this without the need for special viewing glasses although it does require a specially adapted LCD, the company said.
The company launched its IC3D graphics chip design at the Society of Information Display International Symposium taking place in Boston, Massachusetts, Tuesday (May 24).
Philips 3D Solutions has developed multi-view 3D display solutions based on lenticular lens technology, which is an array of transparent lenses fixed on a standard LCD panel, the company said.
The graphics chip performs the real-time rendering and interweaving of 2D and depth information into the 3D image. Without this display signal processing, a 3D display can only show static, pre-rendered content such as pictures and logos. The IC3D could also be used for color processing, scaling, and real-time depth calculation for 2D content, Philips 3D Solutions said.
The IC3D chip could be integrated into the display module of a handset or in the back end of a handset's application engine. It is also possible to integrate the same functionality as an IP block into a multimedia application engine, Philips 3D Solutions said.
Engineering samples of the IC3D chip are dur to become available in the fourth quarter of 2005 with volume shipments due to follow in Q1 2006 to selected customers.
