Meet the DLP Chip's Biggest Booster

Texas Instruments CEO Rich Templeton is pretty excited about what the chip will mean for HDTV — and his company's bottom line

A chip with a 2 million tiny mirrors is shaking up the TV business. It's the Digital Light Processor, from chipmaker Texas Instruments (TXN ). After only about three years on the market, the chip is now found in sets from all the major manufacturers, including Panasonic (MC ), RCA, LG Electronics, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), Samsung, and Toshiba.

While the percentage of DLP sets is small when compared to the rest of the overall TV market — research firm iSuppli says DLP chips were in less than 1% of TVs sold in 2005, and it expects that figure to rise only to 1.4% by 2010 — you can't help but notice that the technology is getting recognition. Consumers will snap up some 1.7 million DLP sets this year, iSuppli reckons.

That's great news for TI. While the company doesn't break out results from the DLP business unit, Lehman Brothers analyst Tim Luke estimates sales of the chip contributed $750 million in revenue to TI's top line in 2005, and could approach $1 billion this year. That would make it the fastest-growing product in TI's lineup.

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