Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995                   TAG: 9508250076
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TOKYO                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S NOT ART: IT'S THE GREAT, FLAT HOPE OF THE JAPANESE

Flat televisions that hang on walls like paintings have been predicted for years, but now Japanese companies are starting to bet hundreds of millions of dollars to bring the technology into homes.

On Thursday, Fujitsu Ltd. said it will invest 20 billion yen, or $210 million, this year to construct a production line for 42-inch color flat TV screens. It plans to spend an additional $420 million in 1998, and by the year 2000 be making 100,000 panels a month.

The so-called plasma display panels are a mere 3 inches thick, making the production of flat TVs possible. Fujitsu says the image quality is equal to the best conventional picture tubes and is superior to that of any rear-projection-type displays.

They won't be cheap. When mass production starts in the fall of 1996, each screen will be priced at about $5,200, Fujitsu president Tadashi Sekizawa said. Prices are expected to decline gradually.

The displays will be targeted primarily at makers of home-entertainment systems, Sekizawa said.

Three other Japanese electronics companies have also recently announced large plasma display investments.

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Monday that it will begin making 26- and 40-inch plasma displays. Earlier this summer, Sony Corp. announced it will make screens of up to 50 inches, and NEC Corp. said it will invest 15 billion yen ($156 million) over the next two years to make 20- to 60-inch screens.

By 2000, NEC expects to be producing 150,000 screens per month with sales in excess of $1 billion. And by 2002, it predicts the market for 20-inch screens alone will total nearly $8 billion.

Japanese companies, still struggling to emerge from Japan's prolonged economic slump, hope the screens will become an important new source of revenue.

They already control much of the world market for liquid crystal displays, which are used in most notebook computers and handheld TVs. But competition from South Korean and Taiwanese makers is growing in the LCD market, now estimated at more than $8 billion a year.

Plasma screens have been under development for many years, but the technology is just now becoming practical.

Among their advantages over conventional screens: They are thin and light, have a wide viewing angle, and can be made in sizes greater than 60 inches - compared with a maximum of about 40 inches for conventional picture tubes.

Plasma displays contain a combination of gases sandwiched between two glass sheets. Thousands of tiny electrodes arrayed in a mosaic pattern along one of the sheets discharge electrons which react with the gases to produce light, much like miniature fluorescent lamps. Different phosphors on the other sheet produce various colors.