OLED-TV|Laser-TV|SED|Display|FED|

The information display is a critical human interface to electronic systems. Industry experts have been working for decades to make them lager, lighter, brighter and thinner particularly for TV use. Furthering the quest for the exemplary display TV is the introduction of HDTV. HDTV provides means for transforming the entertainment experience. By delivering crystal clear video in high resolution, hight-fidelity sorround soun, full-screen graphics and the ability to drive interactive applications, HDTV delivers an immersive user experience that is attracting consumers all over the world.

Due to the inherent flaws in current display technology for HDTV, many researchers have turned to field emission dispay FED which uses carbon nano-tubes (CNTs) to emit electrons, as the technology of choice for HDTV.
It is this technology that will be able to support the HDTV revolution at an acceptable cost.

On the other hand, Canon and Toshiba have developed another class of FED that is based on a lateral field emitter called the surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED)
We have classified the SED in the FED family for two reasons. First, the Society for Information Display and other display conference organizers generally place SED presentations and posters together with FED talks; we will be consistent with this convention. Second there are many things that the FED and SED have in common. This article discusses the similarities and differences between the two technologies and their effect on performance.

Common characteristics:
SED and FED technologies have many things in common in terms of form factor, view technology, structure and manufacturing.
Form factor They are both flat-and thin-screen technologies that depending on the approach can achieve HDTV specifications for large screen displays. In the International Display Workshops Proceedings 2005, a 36-inch diagonal SED panel was described as having 1.280x768 pixels. This display is only 7.3 mm thick which sums up the 2.8 mm cathode plate, 2.8mm anode plate and 1.7 mm vacuum spacing. The panel weight is 7.8 kg. The weight and thickness of an FED of comparable size is expected to be about the same. The target market for both FED and SEDs is large-area HDTV.

Vew technology SED and FED are both direct-view or emissive display technologies. Each pixel or sub-pixel generates its own light energy that is seen directly by the viewer, allowing high contrast and efficiency, and other performance improvements. For SED and other FED-Technologies, the light that forms the image is created by energetic electrons strikig a phosphor screen anode, very similar to the anodescreen of a CRT. The phosphors used are also the same or very similar to those ussed CRTs.

Figure1: The structure of FED (b) is similar with the structure of SED (a) except for the details of the cathode plate

Figure 3: The anode fabrication process is very similar for both SED and FED.
By Richard Fink
VP of Engineering
E-mail: dfink@appliednanotech.net
Applied Nanotech Inc.