San Francisco - Tiny screens have been a big hindrance to the wider use of mobile phone handsets to read email, surf the internet or watch movies.

This is set to change by next year when people will be able to use their handsets to project large, vivid colour images onto any flat surface.

For instance, two friends may lie together and watch a movie downloaded from their handset by projecting it onto the ceiling.

Two colleagues may use a handset to rehearse a Powerpoint presentation by projecting its downloaded file onto the wall of an elevator while on the way to a meeting.

This is what NASDAQ-listed Microvision is preparing to make happen in partnership with some of the unidentified top-tier mobile phone vendors.

"Some of the major handset vendors have approached us and we are working with them so that we will probably release the projector-embedded handset sometime during April to June of 2009," said Matt Nichols, director of the Washington-headquartered Microvision.

A thin module will be integrated into a handset so that it can work like a projector display.

"We face almost no competition from any other peer vendors because no one else can achieve such a thinness and such a low power consumption as ours," Nichols said.

The Pico-branded projector will run on just 1.5 Watts.

The protocol for the "PicoP-branded display" was introduced at the 2008 Electronic Summit hosted by Global Press in San Francisco from March 31 to April 3.

He said that handset vendors will pay about 100 US dollars per unit of the Pico-projector, which will be produced from its own fabrication facilities.

Meanwhile, Microvision is also preparing to launch a stand-alone version of this projector that goes with mobile devices, including ipods and iphones.

Unlike the projector that goes inside the phone, the stand-alone is attached by cable to the devices.

The Microvision director says its targeted launch is sometime around the end of this year.

How is the image created? A low-powered red, green and blue light beam is directed by the scanning MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) mirror to produce an image, the Microvision director explained.

Developed by Microvision, the MEMS scanner is a silicon-based device at the centre of which is a tiny mirror that oscillates both vertically and horizontally.(dpa)