Characterization of the Digital Micromirror Devices

The digital micromirror devices (DMDs) are widely used in various DLP® products. Since the DMDs were the first optical MEMS in mass production when Texas Instruments introduced the DMD-based digital display products to the market in 1996, there were no existing characterization tools and methods that could meet the specific needs of the DMDs. New characterization tools had to be built and methodologies had to be developed to fully assess the performance and robustness of the devices. Over the years, new commercial MEMS characterization tools have become available and some were adopted for DMD characterization. However, characterizing devices with millions of mirrors still remains challenging and requires unique solutions. In this paper, current static, dynamic, and optical characterization methods and tools used for DMD characterization will be presented. The array-based tilt angle measurement method using far-field diffraction patterns and the device-based operating space evaluation will be discussed in detail.