Plasma display

A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat-panel display that uses small cells containing plasma (ionized gas) to produce an image. Each cell functions as a tiny fluorescent lamp, emitting ultraviolet (UV) light when the gas is energized by an electric current. The UV light then strikes phosphor coatings on the inside of the cells, causing them to emit visible light in red, green, or blue. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches/81 cm diagonal) flat-panel displays to be released to the public. Plasma display technology was invented in the 1960s at the University of Illinois and were later made for niche use in luxurious monochrome computer monitors and terminals, before vanishing due to affordable color thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT LCDs). Planar neon plasma displays like Burroughs's Panaplex were also in use for a short while in handheld electronics like calculators and multimeters before being squeezed out by liquid-crystal display (LCD), vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) and light-emitting diode (LED) during the 1980s. Fujitsu's research and development in cooperation with the University of Illinois and Japanese state broadcaster NHK led to the creation of a color plasma display that was first commercially tested in 1989. Large-sized wall-mounted displays became reality with both Fujitsu and Philips (using Fujitsu panels) releasing the first consumer PDPs in 1997. As expensive high-end items, plasma TVs never matched the popularity of cathode ray tube (CRTs) but found an appreciation among home cinema enthusiasts and falling prices helped it overtake rear-projection televisions. During the mid- and late-2000s, PDPs competed directly with LCDs in the battle of flat-panel displays, with Panasonic, LG and Samsung being the largest plasma TV makers, but improvements and falling costs of LCDs had eventually eroded plasma's market share almost entirely. Manufacturing of plasma displays for the United States retail market ended in 2014, and manufacturing for the Chinese market ended in 2016. Plasma displays are obsolete, having been superseded in most if not all aspects by organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.

History

Early development

Kálmán Tihanyi, a Hungarian engineer, described a proposed flat-panel plasma display system in a 1936 paper. The first practical plasma video display was co-invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign by Donald Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow, and graduate student Robert Willson for the PLATO computer system. The goal was to create a display that had inherent memory to reduce the cost of the terminals. The original neon orange monochrome Digivue display panels built by glass producer Owens-Illinois were very popular in the early 1970s because they were rugged and needed neither memory nor circuitry to refresh the images. A long period of sales decline occurred in the late 1970s because semiconductor memory made CRT displays cheaper than the $2500 USD 512 × 512 PLATO plasma displays. Nevertheless, the plasma displays' relatively large screen size and 1 inch (25.4 mm) thickness made them suitable for high-profile placement in lobbies and stock exchanges. Burroughs Corporation, a maker of adding machines and computers, developed the Panaplex display in the early 1970s. The Panaplex display, generically referred to as a gas-discharge or gas-plasma display, uses the same technology as later plasma video displays, but began life as a seven-segment display for use in adding machines. They became popular for their bright orange luminous look and found nearly ubiquitous use throughout the late 1970s and into the 1990s in cash registers, calculators, pinball machines, aircraft avionics such as radios, navigational instruments, and stormscopes; test equipment such as frequency counters and multimeters; and generally anything that previously used nixie tube or numitron displays with a high digit-count. These displays were eventually replaced by LEDs because of their low current-draw and module-flexibility, but are still found in some applications where their high brightness is desired, such as pinball machines and avionics.

1980s

In 1983, IBM introduced a 19-inch (48 cm) orange-on-black monochrome display (Model 3290 Information Panel) which was able to show up to four simultaneous IBM 3270 terminal sessions. By the end of the decade, orange monochrome plasma displays were used in a number of high-end AC-powered portable computers, such as the Ericsson Portable PC (the first use of such a display in 1985), the Compaq Portable 386 (1987) and the IBM P75 (1990). Plasma displays had a better contrast ratio, viewability angle, and faster response time than the LCDs that were available at the time, and were used until the introduction of active-matrix color LCD displays in 1992. Due to heavy competition from monochrome LCDs used in laptops and the high costs of plasma display technology, in 1987 IBM planned to shut down its factory in Kingston, New York, the largest plasma plant in the world, in favor of manufacturing mainframe computers, which would have left development to Japanese companies. Dr. Larry F. Weber, a University of Illinois ECE PhD (in plasma display research) and staff scientist working at CERL (home of the PLATO System), co-founded Plasmaco with Stephen Globus and IBM plant manager James Kehoe, and bought the plant from IBM for US$50,000. Weber stayed in Urbana as CTO until 1990, then moved to upstate New York to work at Plasmaco.

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