SED Revs Up CEATEC

SED Revs Up CEATEC

October 4th, 2006

If your looking for the biggest buzz at Japan’s CEATEC this year, go no further than the Canon/Toshiba SED booth in Hall 1 at this massive precursor to the January Consumer Electronics Show. Here, the Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display (SED), which was conspicuously absent from SID and other display technology venues this year, is being shown in a 55-inch model.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
of Projection Monthly

Lines begin forming a good 40 minutes to 1 hr. before the closed-door presentation, and that’s the line to get tickets. There is yet another line to see the demonstration.

To my knowledge, no one who has seen the SED technology up front and close denies the display prowess. And the specs support this. The 55-inch model shown publicly for the first time here yesterday includes a 1920 x 1080 display resolution boasting 50,000:1 contrast at 450 cd/m2 brightness at a less than 1ms response time. Yutaka Sakuraba, SEDs deputy senior general manager for product development and design claims true CRT like performance from the flat panel display; something he said no other display technology can even approach.

Possibly true, but the company has yet to demonstrate they can produce these results in mass quantities and perhaps more importantly, at a price point competitive with rival LCD and PDP flat screens. Adding fuel to doubting display analyst crowd is the company’s long delay in bringing the product to market-or even full production.

For his part, Sakuraba said flat panel market conditions, including significant price erosion in the space, forced a re-visit of product development plans including cost-down and ramp models more than once. " It’s been a planning nightmare for the team but we believe we are on track for full production in the 2008 time frame." he said. "We’re looking at the broader view and mass migration to DTV by 2011 when digital TV signals become the standard and all analog goes away." Sakuraba continued.

The company will spend the first half of 2007 perfecting its prototype process in Hitatsuka, Japan where the 55-inch units shown at CEATEC were produced. The company plans to be in serial-production by July-07 with a 55-inch line. Then, it will move to full production at a former Toshiba CRT factory located in Himaji, (Hyogo prefecture) Japan by the beginning of 2008.

Sakuraba emphasized all equipment used to build the new displays in the company’s prototype factory was developed in-house leveraging the technology strengths of both partners. For example, Canon is supplying critical ink-jet technology in applying the palladium-oxide and carbon compound emitter layer. So the company is charged not only with developing the process, but building the tools to manufacture the technology as well.

Make no mistake, what these two companies are attempting is no less than a display technology paradigm shift in the face of LCD and PDP flat panel dominance - the result of billions of R&D and capacity investment dollars and ballooning output fueling accelerated price declines which continually spur demand for these traditional flat panels. But the company is bullish on SED display superiority, pouring development funds and resources into the project. And if the growing crowds here at CEATEC portend the future, the SED image is one certainly worth waiting for. The question is: will this wait ever be rewarded? –SS