Sony and Candescent Technologies, a California-based flat-panel
display developer, have ended three years of joint research on
Field Emission Displays (FEDs) and decided not to renew the
project.
"We have just ended the joint development and there are no plans
for a consumer product," said Aki Shimazu, a Sony
spokeswoman.
The two companies first started working together in late 1998 and
decided to extend the project until the end of 2001. Sony also took
a stake of undisclosed size in Candescent and paid the company
advance licensing fees for the technology. Sony is continuing to
work on development of FED panels and has rights to the fruits of
the project with Candescent, said Shimazu.
FED panels have electrical discharge arrays which activate a single
pixel by focusing a beam of electrons on the pixel, in the same way
a cathode ray tube (CRT) works. An FED is capable of achieving a
picture of similar brightness, viewing angle and response time as a
conventional CRT although it is much thinner. Sony was developing
the technology for use in flat-panel television sets and
monitors.
Before it embarked on research of FED technology, Sony was one of a
handful of companies developing plasma addressed liquid crystal
(PALC) technology.
The company obtained a licence to work on PALC technology from the
original developer, Tektronix, and began a joint development
project in July 1997 with Sharp and Philips.
Joint development work on PALC ended in March 2000 and shortly
afterwards, Sony took a 15% stake in a joint venture formed by
Fujitsu and Hitachi to commercially produce PDP screens. Despite
the end of the joint work on PALC, Sony continued internal
development until late 2001.
Sony is also continuing to develop organic electroluminescence
displays (OELDs). The company sees OELDs, which are capable of
producing bright, fast moving images with low power consumption, as
an eventual successor to LCD technology in many applications.