Progress in Large Screen Plasma Display and New Approach for Extra-large Screen System with Plasma Tube Technology

A 42-inch plasma display was developed by Fujitsu Ltd. in 1995, which opened the door to the new world of large screen flat-panel displays, which had ever been built. For these ten years, plasma displays have won on the great successful story from both the business and technical points of view. The latest development enabled us to build a 100-inch plasma display, and some of the new technical approaches are going to achieve a new plasma display with a screen size of as large as over 200 inches. Especially, plasma tube arrays are to be noticed as the new technology that goes to achieve ultra-thin, light-weight, flexible displays, each having low power consumption. Prototype display of 0.5 times 1-m screen size was fabricated and its weight was measured at 0.6 kg

I. Introduction

Plasma display panels (PDPs) have produced a new market of large-screen flat panel television (TV) featuring real and impressive image expression and have gone into the stage of continuous spread. The world's first full-color 21-in. diagonal PDP was developed in 1992 by Fujitsu [1]. The basic technologies of the color ac PDPs developed with that had several advantages that lead to future development for higher definition and larger screen. Based on the principle and practical structure of PDPs which were suitable for large screen, the 42-in. diagonal color PDP was developed in 1995 [2], and the world of a new flat-panel large screen display was opened. PDPs have extended the market share steadily in the public display field, taking advantage of the flat panel, large-screen, and extensive viewing angle since the 42-in PDPs had been put into the large flat-panel display market in 1996. A 32-in diagonal PDP-TV had received attention in the market in 2001, which was the first year of broadcasting satellite (BS) digital high-definition television broadcasting started in Japan. The number of products for home-use exceeded the business use in that year, and that is called the first year of the plasma television era.