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Plasma history
In 1983, IBM introduced a 19-inch (48 cm) orange-on-black monochrome display (model 3290 'information panel') which was able to show four simultaneous IBM 3270 virtual machine (VM) terminal sessions. That factory was transferred in 1987 to startup company Plasmaco, which Dr. Larry F. Weber, one of Dr. Bitzer's students, founded with Stephen Globus, as well as James Kehoe, who was the IBM plant manager. In 1992, Fujitsu introduced the world's first 21-inch (53 cm) full-color display. It was a hybrid, based upon the plasma display created at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and NHK STRL, achieving superior brightness. In 1996, Matsushita Electrical Industries (Panasonic) purchased Plasmaco, its color AC technology, and its American factory. In 1997, Fujitsu introduced the first 42-inch (107 cm) plasma display; it had 852x480 resolution and was progressively scanned. Also in 1997, Pioneer started selling the first plasma television to the public. Many current plasma televisions, thinner and of larger area than their predecessors, are in use. Their thin size allows them to compete with large area projection screens. Screen sizes have increased since the introduction of plasma displays. The largest plasma video display in the world at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, North America was a 150-inch (381 cm) unit manufactured by Matsushita Electrical Industries (Panasonic) standing 6 ft (180 cm) tall by 11 ft (330 cm) wide and expected to initially retail at US$150,000. Until quite recently, the superior brightness, faster response time, greater color spectrum, and wider viewing angle of color plasma video displays, when compared with LCD televisions, made them one of the most popular forms of display for HDTV flat panel displays. For a long time it was widely believed that LCD technology was suited only to smaller sized televisions, and could not compete with plasma technology at larger sizes, particularly 40 inches (100 cm) and above. Since then, improvements in LCD technology have narrowed the technological gap. The lower weight, falling prices, higher available resolution (important for HDTV), and often lower electrical power consumption of LCDs make them competitive with plasma television sets. As of late 2006, analysts note that LCDs are overtaking plasmas, particularly in the important 40-inch (1.0 m) and above segment where plasma had previously enjoyed strong dominance. Another industry trend is the consolidation of manufacturers of plasma displays, with around fifty brands available but only five manufacturers. In the 1Q of 2008 a comparison of worldwide TV sales breaks down to 22.1 million for CRT, 21.1 million for LCD, 2.8 million for Plasma, and 124 thousand for rear-projection. |
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The plasma video display was co-invented on 1964 in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Donald Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow, and graduate student Robert Willson for the PLATO Computer System. The original monochrome (orange, green, yellow) video display panels 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 as semiconductor memory made CRT displays cheaper than plasma displays.Nonetheless, the plasma displays' relatively large screen size and thin body made them suitable for high-profile placement in lobbies and stock exchanges.
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