In response to these very prominent problems, two new technologies were introduced into the mass market some years ago. One was the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), and the other the GPD (Gas Plasma Display). The former exploits the property of semiconductive crystals to be either transparent or opaque with the presence or lack thereof of an electrical field. GPDs, on the other hand, use energized gases known as plasma, which in turn sheds light that can be used to draw an image. The low-power LCDs have boomed in areas that require thin profile, energy efficient displays, such as laptop computers, camcorders, and some desktop computing environments such as stock trading floors. GPDs have proven themselves in the realm of jumbo sized television displays, allowing for 42" screens that are as thin as an encyclopedia, and brighter than comparably sized CRT displays.

Unfortunately, both have these new technologies have run up against some fairly serious limitations of their own. LCDs have a small problem scaling. They tend to be very difficult to manufacture, with a low tolerance for defects, which makes it very hard to produce very large liquid-crystal displays. It also happens to make LCDs rather expensive; you can probably thank the LCD panel for half the cost of your laptop. Plasma displays are also tricky to manufacture, and require complicated electronics. A 42" GPD television will often cost $10 000 or better for those reasons, and the price of a plasma-display HDTV would give most people a heart-attack. A few teams working for various companies are also trying to scale-down the size of GPDs for use in PDAs and cellphones, but the operation is tricky, and how cost effective this solution will prove remains to be seen.

Every industry has a silver lining, though, and in this day and age, why should the display industry prove any different? To the rescue of consumers dreaming of ultra-thin, ultra-large, and ultra-cheap flatpanel displays ride our cavaliers, flying under the banners of such diverse companies as Xerox, Candescent, E-Ink, Lucent Technologies, and Westaim. Their aim is no less than to grab hold of the multi-billion dollar display market with new technologies they hope will supplant CRTs and LCDs forevermore.

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