If you like to be the first on the block to own the next big thing, this is your year for a "pico projector."

These personal projectors weren't available last year, and this Christmas season it won't be easy to get your hands on one.

The prefix "pico" means "one-trillionth," and though the projectors aren't quite that much smaller than you're used to, the term conveys what they are: tiny.

Some experts are predicting that they may soon be available on smart phones - and Micron may have the know-how to make it happen.

Today you can drop about $300 on a palm-sized stand-alone device that plugs into a personal media player, and Nikon's $429.99 CoolPix S1000pj digital camera comes with its own built-in projector. But whether the technology catches on as a stand-alone or is tied to other applications will depend on consumers, said Chris Chinnock, president of Insight Media, a Connecticut-based market research firm.

"The big question mark is: Is this a viable application for end users?" Chinnock said. "The real answer is: We don't know yet."

In May, Micron bought Displaytech, a company that makes microdisplays and pico projector components. Micron got DisplayTech's ferroelectric liquid crystal on silicon technology, Chinnock said, some of the most advanced technology for pico projectors.

Micron's ferroelectric liquid crystals are hundreds of times faster than conventional liquid crystal displays (LCDs), giving cell phone displays - and now pico projectors - better resolution and color. The company 3M uses Micron's technology in its own handheld MPro120 pico projectors, as do many smaller firms.

Micron's main competitors are Texas Instruments and Microvision, Inc., which are pushing their own technologies for the emerging field.

Samsung uses Texas Instrument's "digital light processing" technology - called DLP - in its new W7900 smart phone, which costs about $500. Frank Moizio, Texas Instruments' manager for DLP emerging markets, said its technology is in the world's leading brands of cell phones, consumer electronics and computing products.

"The stunning picture quality is immediately evident versus competing technologies," he said in a statement provided to the Idaho Statesman.

All of these companies need to reduce the power demand and improve the brightness level of the images if they are to catch on as a part of smart phones like Apple's iPhone, Chinnock said. But with Displaytech's technology and its own infrastructure, Micron has a step up.

"They have fabs, they have manufacturing partners around a global supply chain and a global customer base," Chinnock said.

But Micron Technology's main business remains memory, and like its light-emitting diodes (LED) manufacturing business, the company is keeping its focus on its core.

Still Chinnock said this shouldn't keep Micron out of the pico projector race. The key timeframe is from 2014 to 2015 - that's when the technology could take off, but still be unique enough that the price hasn't dropped.

"They've got a core team in place and they know what they need to do," he said.

Micron officials would not comment for this story, but this summer they gave CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman a demonstration of the company's technology. Micron's Eric Boles told Terdiman that Micron will try to convince businesspeople they can make presentations anywhere at any time with pico projectors.

But everyone knows the ultimate goal is to become a part of the $1 billion-a-year worldwide smart phone business. If the price is low enough to make projectors a part of phones and perhaps media players they may become as ubiquitous as digital cameras are today.

On YouTube already you can watch two Japanese boys who placed Nikon Coolpix cameras and projectors all over their body and put together a multimedia presentation.

"The reality is we are going to see a lot more creativity than we already see put into these projectors," Chinnock said. "There will be applications we can't even think of today."

Rocky Barker: 377-6484