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It's been said that the 21st Century will be the multimedia information ge. when consumers witness the convergence of computers and television to get products that integrate a wide mix of video, sound, imaging, and communication technologies. Consumer applications such as WebTV, home theater systems, and powerful computers that control home activities are expected to fuel the demand for large, flat-panel displays (FPDs) as the favored man-machine interface.
Perhaps the most alluring consumer application for flat-panel displays with screen sizes larger than 20-in. diagonal is high-definition television (HDTV). Historically, consumers have proven that they believe "bigger is better." Market studies reveal that in the past five years, U.S. consumers have increasingly purchased TVs with screen sizes larger than 27-in. HDTVs are expected to be able to display over four times the visual information of current TV standards, and will require screens in excess of 50-in. diagonal for viewers to fully appreciate the high-resolution images. Since a conventional CRT for a TV with a screen of this size would weigh more than 400 lbs. and measure nearly 3 ft. deep, developers must look to FPDs.
Currently, the only flat-panel technology capable of displaying highquality images on such a large screen are plasma-display panels (PDPs). Pursued previously by a handful of manufacturers, PDP technology, or some derivative of it, is now being developed by no less than six major manufacturers. With digital broadcasting expected to be available by Fall 1998, plasma displays could be a $2.1 billion worldwide market in five years, according to Stanford Resources Inc., San Jose, Calif.
The current HDTV standard has many requirements that complement the strengths of PDP technology including a digital red, green, and blue (RGB) interface, a noninterlace (progressive scan) frame format, and 16:9 aspect ratio.
In addition, the thin PDP screen is lightweight enough to hang on a wall, and images are stable and distortionfree to the very edges of the entire screen. The viewing angle is as wide as a CRT's, with comparable image brightness, color, and contrast. Being an emissive technology, AC-PDPs produce images that are clearly viewable in ambient light without the aid of costly and power-hungry backlights.
Aside from HDTV, there are other applications that can utilize the features of large PDPs. Consider how...