Conventional optical microscopes can achieve super-resolution and optical sectioning capabilities by replacing the source of uniform illumination with structured illumination module. Because of the configuration compatibility with the conventional wide-field optical microscope, the structured illumination microscopy (SIM) inherits the merits of non-invasiveness, low phototoxicity, low photo-bleaching, and fast imaging speed. The high spatiotemporal resolution and three-dimensional optical sectioning abilities of SIM are highly suitable for the observation of living cells or tissues. Thus, SIM has attracted continuous attention by the biomedical and optical communities. The core techniques of SIM are fast fringe generation with high contrast and high frequency, as well as fast phase shifting and fringe rotation. The digital micromirror device (DMD) based SIM (DMD-SIM) has undergone rapid development in recent years. DMD-SIM, taking the advantages of high refreshing rate, high photon flux efficiency, and insensitive to polarization, has overcome the drawbacks of the low modulation speeds of traditional devices, e.g., physical gratings and liquid crystal spatial light modulators. First, the basic principles of SIM for super-resolution and optical sectioning are introduced. Then it focuses on the DMD-SIM for generation of structured illuminations by using either beam projection or beam interference methods. Furthermore, the advances in DMD-SIM technology are reviewed, and the advantages and disadvantages of DMD-SIM are summarized. Finally, the challenges and the outlook for DMD-SIM are anticipated.