Plasma display

Lore & Background

The first practical plasma video display was co-invented in 1964 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign by Donald Bitzer, H. Gene Slottow, and graduate student Robert Willson for the PLATO computer system. The original neon orange monochrome Digivue display panels built by Owens-Illinois were popular in the early 1970s because they were rugged and needed neither memory nor circuitry to refresh images. Burroughs Corporation developed the Panaplex display in the early 1970s, a seven-segment gas-discharge display used in adding machines, calculators, pinball machines, and avionics, eventually replaced by LEDs.

Reader's Guide

Plasma displays were significant as the first large flat-panel displays available to the public, enabling wall-mounted televisions. They offered deeper blacks, increased contrast, faster response time, greater color spectrum, and wider viewing angle compared to early LCDs. However, improvements in LCD fabrication—including increased size, lower weight, falling prices, and lower power consumption—eroded plasma's market share. By late 2006, LCDs had overtaken plasmas even in the 40-inch and above segment. Manufacturing for the US retail market ended in 2014, and for the Chinese market in 2016. Plasma displays are now obsolete, having been superseded in most aspects by OLED displays.

Did You Know?

• Kálmán Tihanyi described a proposed flat-panel plasma display system in a 1936 paper.
• Fujitsu introduced the first 42-inch plasma display panel in 1995 with 852×480 resolution.
• Panasonic developed a process to make plasma displays using ordinary window glass instead of expensive high strain point glass.