Last December, a team of managers, scientists, and technicians from Texas Instruments (TI) trekked from their corporate research labs in Dallas to a meeting at George Lucas' sprawling ranch in the hills west of San Rafael, Calif. Lucas was present. So was Rick McCallum, producer of "Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace," then still half a year from opening day. The movie moguls had summoned the TI staffers to audition a digital projector, built by the company, that could change how movies are shown, replacing Hollywood's beloved canisters of film with semiconductor chips.

Lucas was impressed. He called back the TI scientists. "He asked if we were interested in unveiling the digital cinema projection system at a second opening of 'Phantom Menace,'" recalls Larry Hornbeck, a soft-spoken TI physicist who has been working for the past 20 years on the digital micromirror device (DMD) that is at the heart of the new projector.