The big display makers are introducing LED, TFT LCD, PDP (plasma display panel) and surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) technologies and prototypes at FPD International 2006 (October 18-20) in Yokohama, Japan.

Toshiba is showing a 55-inch SED TV, with the product to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2007, sources said.

Hitachi is showing a variety of small- to medium-size TFT LCD panels for portable devices while Citizen, Samsung Electronics and Osram Opto Semiconductors are showing LED backlight unit (BLU) technologies, with Samsung displaying a 40-inch LED-based LCD TV.

Sharp is highlighting a 4096×2160-resolution 64-inch LCD TV. Matsushita Electric Industrial is showing 40- and 50-inch class full high-definition (HD) PDPs while Pioneer is exhibiting a PDP with a contrast ratio of more than 20,000:1.

Nearly 360 companies are showing products at FPD International 2006, compared to 355 in 2005, with special areas dedicated to panel, key component, material, BLU, equipment and OLED, according to the website of the event.

SED TVs are a combination of conventional CRT (cathode-ray tube) televisions and LCDs (liquid-crystal displays). In conventional CRT televisions, an electron gun fires electrons at a phosphor-coated glass divided into pinpoints to create images. The electrons, however, need to disperse in a large vacuum, which is why TV tubes are so large and bulky.

In an SED television, electrons get filtered into an array of thousands of tips only a few nanometers wide, which then deliver electrons to illuminate the screen. As a result, these TVs can be thin, like LCDs or plasmas. Other companies are producing similar televisions in which thousands of carbon nanotubes fire electrons.