The battle between LCD and plasma displays has been going on for quite a long time now, with the victory nowhere in sight (and a looming threat from the upcoming OLED displays, which are promising enhanced quality over both of the aforementioned technologies). However, plasmas seem to have just received a major boost in the right direction, as the Japanese company Shinoda Plasma has announced the development of a special type of PDP (plasma display), which can be bent into a curved shape and is just 1 mm thick.

As our colleagues from TechOn inform us, Shinoda has revealed during "CEATEC Japan 2007" a 125-inch curved-surface display using its proprietary PTA (plasma tube array) display technology. As you might have imagined, this size is still impossible to achieve by using just one module, so Shinoda actually connected three PTA sub-modules sideways, each of the sub-modules measuring 1 square meter.

And as you can see from the photo, the result is a pretty amazing one. Thus, the screen measures no less than 3 meters, with the display part being just 1 mm thick and weighing somewhere around 3.5 kilos. Furthermore, the PDP can attain a maximum display resolution of 960 x 360 pixels and requires up to 600 W of power during normal operation.

Moreover, it seems that the model has enjoyed such a high level of success that there are already some people willing to purchase it. "The new prototype is "nearly as good as a mass-produced model", said Tsutae Shinoda, president and chairman of Shinoda Plasma. "There are already some users who want to purchase it given its current display performance (for digital signage and such applications)", he continued.

Since this is only a prototype, we'll probably have to wait a lot more before a mass-produced version hits the shelves. Nevertheless, Shinoda Plasma is on the right track, especially since the company has also announced a partnership with another Japanese company, Hibino Corp, for the development and sale of its PTA-based final product, which will incorporate the latter's video processing technology. Which means that, with a little luck, we'll see these very innovative PDPs take on OLEDs in just a few years' time.


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