D-ILA chipsD-ILA on the other hand, is a very different technology than DLP and is actually a variant of LCoS or Liquid Crystal on Silicon.

ENGADGET: D-ILA and DLP: what are they? HD

It's probably just a little too late to ask for one of these for the holidays, but you can still plan for next year (hey, Valentine's Day is coming, right?) by checking out Sound and Vision's review of 70-inch HD-ILA Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) set.

ENGADGET: JVC D-ILA 70-inch LCoS reviewed

Russell and Xu's method starts with a sliced crystal, either sapphire or silicon, cut at an angle that exposes a ragged section of the crystal's lattice structure.

FORBES: Nanotech

Thanks to this new technology, called liquid-crystal-on-silicon, displays will become cheaper, thinner, brighter, and more portable, says Chris Chinnock, editor of Microdisplay Report.

CNN: Watch for microdisplays this year

Comprised of three chips, D-ILA projects an image on to a silicon-based crystal display by creating the image on the chips.

ENGADGET: D-ILA and DLP: what are they? HD