TOKYO, Oct. 2, 2003 — Applied Nanotech Inc. (ANI) might beat a bunch of hopefuls in developing the first carbon nanotube field emission device (CNT-FED) television.
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ANI announced Monday that it has formed a team with Japanese display component manufacturers to produce a 25-inch diagonal, full-color, CNT-FED driven television prototype. The company said its goal is to produce a commercial TV by October 2004 with a resolution compatible with a 60-inch or larger high-definition television (HDTV) format display. ANI has also announced that it would demonstrate a 14-inch black-and-white carbon nanotube TV at the International Display Workshop Dec. 3-5 in Fukuoka, Japan.
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If ANI delivers on both counts, the realization of CNT-FED technologies for a mass market after 2005 could become a reality after many promises but few actual products, according to some of the technology’s critics.
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Four main issues have so far bedeviled CNT-FED applications in commercial products: manufacturability and stability, driver costs, potential patent issues and a crowded display market.
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Toyohiro Chikyow, director of Japan’s National Institute for Material Science Nanomaterial Research Laboratories, said in an August interview that it’s common knowledge in scientific circles that FEDs require an array of peripheral devices that add cost and power current and drivers. Switching speeds are slow within the circuits and large-scale integration is problematic.
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ANI appears to have at least solved the driver issues. According to ANI President Zvi Yaniv, the company successfully demonstrated a low-voltage, fast-switching electron source that ANI thinks will make large panels possible by driver costs down to under $7 per driver, which is on the way to commercial competitiveness. The 100-volt, 14-inch color TV panel to be shown this December will prove this, Yaniv said.
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Kazuo Konuma, an analyst at Japan’s R&D Association of Future Electron Devices, an advisory panel to the Japanese government, believes companies that have made announcements about producing CNT-FED TVs have been glossing over reliability and stability issues that are still potential showstoppers. On top of manufacturing difficulties, controlling CNT orientation and length, and connecting them to silicon substrates and contacts, have also proved troublesome. Motorola in July announced its nano-emissive display (NED) technology as a breakthrough in orderly depositing of CNTs.
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But Konuma said that, apart from ANI, competitors have yet to overcome stability and lifetime issues.
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“CNT-FEDs tend to short and destroy themselves quickly and they degrade far faster than the tens of thousands of hours of reliable operation needed for commercial acceptability,” Konuma said.
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“CNT-FED commercialization has been greatly expected, but if FEDs do not completely conquer the problem of electric discharge destruction completely, it must be said that commercialization remains difficult. … If ANI can produce a TV, then I will believe in the technology,” he said.
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Back in February, Noritake showcased what it described as the world’s first 40-inch CNT-FED panel, claiming it was a proof of concept for large panel TVs. The same month, cDream Corp. said it had developed a 5.4-inch monochrome video motion display.
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Yaniv believes that at $1,000 a unit, the 2010 market for 42+ inch displays could grow to $60 billion or even and $100 billion. But analysts such as the Aberdeen Group’s Russ Craig, who looks at emerging digital consumer markets, believes that mass production and an all-out war between big color flat panel LCDs and Plasma Display Panels, that have seen prices plummet in the last eight months, may mean a difficult ride for the new technology.
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“There are a lot of competing display technologies out there,” Craig said. “Success will generally be defined as good enough picture at a good BOM (bill of materials in use) price. We won’t know until we see the price/performance on a mature product.”