Plasma Display Panels

An Introduction
• Plasma Screens have a huge market
• They tend to occupy the market above 37” and up to 103”!
• Shops – Airports – General display tasks – Homes

• However they do have their disadvantages

• They are great in visual display applications such as train

stations and airports due to the robust screen front and large
screen sizes. (large LCD/LED screens are costly, plasma is
relatively cheap)
 So what is a Plasma Screen?
• A plasma screen contains various components needed to emit the energy created
into visible light.
 How do they work?
• Florescent lamps light up different colour segments in a pixel (either Red,
Green or Blue.
• When electrical current is introduced, negative particles rush toward
positively charged areas of the plasma. In this rush, the particles clash
together and emit energy in the form of photons. (light photons)
 Advantages
• Each different screen technology has a different place in the market. The
advantages and disadvantages of each determine the role they are best
suited to.
• Small screen thickness (as compared to CRT and Rear Projection).
• Massive viewing angles – No colour shift!

•Hugely fast refresh rates as

compared to LCD.

•Panasonic released a ‘Neo PDP’

panels early last year with a 700hz
Refresh rate. Most LCD’s tend to
range from 50hz to 200hz (small to
large screens).

•Plus, imagine High Definition on a

103” screen...!
 Disadvantages
• Far heavier than LED and LCD (also thicker).
• Screen panels suffer from image retention or screen burn. (a sever
example of this is shown on the next slide)
• The phosphors used to illuminate the screen (provides brightness)
degrade over time and the screen consequently loses its luminosity.
[However, newer Plasma screens incorporate more technology and now
have a lifespan of up to 100K hours. More than a CRT!]
• They require a glass screen to contain the gases used to produce an
image.
• Less economical (more energy consumption)
• Altitude sickness – caused by the pressure differentiation (gases outside/
gases inside the screen). It can cause buzzing noises and loss of picture
quality.
 Screen Burn

It is caused by the cumulative usage of the same pixels again and again.
Old channel watermarks used to be a common cause. This is because they used to be
opaque, they are now transparent.
Companies have now invested in ‘screen saver’ technology in order to prevent the
continuous usage of the same pixels.
However, the image above is not repairable. The image is burned onto the screen.
 Decline of the plasma screen
• Whilst plasmas still occupy a respectable share of the display
market, the use of plasma displays in homes is declining.
• Companies such as Sony and Toshiba have abandoned plasma
screen production altogether.
• Hardcore home cinema enthusiasts are one of a few
remaining customers (along with shops/airports)
• This is due to the limited large display sizes and the advanced
technology of the LCD and LED screens.

• Have you ever seen a 19” plasma display?

 No?
• That’s because plasma screens under the size of 37”
do not exist.
• From a manufacturing perspective, its not worth it.
• A similar example is a printing press, digital laser
prints are good for a few hundred copies but
lithography etc is more economic for production on
larger print scales of up to 2000 copies.
1936
• Was the year that Kalman Tihanyi
described the principle of a plasma
screen display.
• A plasma screen was then
manufactured and used on Plato
Computer Terminals. (this was in 1964)
• The display was a monochromatic
orange display on a black background.
• And it will definitely not display ESPN
in Native HD 1080p!
 In 2006...
• LCD technology overtook
plasma. People started to
‘buy the best’.
• As technology advanced
and newer, better LCD
panels were introduced into
the market, the lighter,
brighter and generally
better screens were being
bought, predominantly for
home use to start with.

In 2010... Panasonic also manufactured a 152” 2160p 3D plasma

(above)