Nippon Signal has revealed its new entrant into the color projector size war, showing off a SVGA 800 x 600 resolution color projector that's roughly the size of a cigarette case at a recent micromachines exhibition. The prototype, which measures a tiny 90 x 55 x 20mm, uses a MEMS scanner to project images, rather than the more traditional LED.

The projector reaches its small size in part by using proprietary optical parts, including a prism lens exclusively made for it. Nippon Signal also swapped a diode pumping solid state (DPSS) laser for a much tinier semiconductor laser to display greens, reduced the dimensions of the MEMS scanner and optimized the layout to fit within its lilliputian confines. As you can see, the image quality is passable—not even close to movie theater quality, but colors are bright and the resolution is good enough for, say, an impromptu Power Point presentation.

No word on when this will be available to the masses, but Nippon Signal says it plans on commercializing the prototype soon. [Tech On]

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