Sony Takes on LCD Makers With Slim Screen

T O K Y O, Feb. 7 -- Thin is in for TV and computer screens, and Sony Corp. has an organic electroluminescent (OEL) display little thicker than a credit card that it hopes will beat rival technologies in retiring the bulky TV tube.

The consumer electronics powerhouse today showed off aprototype of a 13-inch (33-cm) active-matrix OEL screen it wantsto be mass producing by 2003, with costs and dimensions to matchthe increasingly ubiquitous liquid crystal display (LCD) panels— but thinner, lighter and with a better picture.

“This display is extremely well-suited for broadbandapplications,” said Suehiro Nakamura, a corporate seniorexecutive vice president at Sony.

For Sony, “broadband applications” means being able topresent moving pictures well, which requires a screen thatresponds quickly enough, for example, to faithfully recreate theflash of a fireworks display.

Sony said its OEL screens offer a faster response than LCDs,and because they are self-luminous, requiring no back-lighting,they are thinner and lighter and allow a wider viewing angle.

The electronics industry holds high hopes for the screens fordigital cameras and mobile phones.

Two Japanese electronics companies have already teamed upwith foreign partners to develop and produce OEL displays: SanyoElectric Co Ltd and Eastman Kodak Co announced in May theyjointly developed a 5.5 inch OEL screen, while NEC Corp and SouthKorea’s Samsung SDI agreed in December on a 500 billion won ($400million) OEL joint venture.

But making them big enough for televisions has posed hightechnological hurdles.

Sony said it developed a technology, called top emissionadaptive current drive, that uses four transistors per pixelinstead of the usual two to overcome the problem of unevenluminance in larger OEL screens.

For Flat Panels, Size Matters

It added the top-emission structure produces brighter lightthan bottom-emission technology, which sends light through athin-film transistor (TFT) structure that can block some of itout. It also uses an all-solid state structure that helps to keepthe screens thin.