Flat-Panel Displays

Our window into the Information Age is increasingly an interactive electronic display rather than the printed page. From computer terminals to television, that display is usually a CRT, but recent advances have raised flat panels into contention with the CRT for new applications. New plasma display structures and improvements in electroluminescence, paced by gains in high-voltage ICs, have led to compact computers with these emissive flat panels. ``Supertwist'' LCDs with greatly enhanced performance are reaching the portable computer market. Pocket TV sets with LCDs addressed by integral thin-film transistors presage the development of full-size color screens: wafer-scale integration in a non-standard semiconductor technology is being developed to challenge the CRT's monopoly on entertainment displays. The commercial success of all these displays will be strongly influenced by gains in VLSI, packaging and interconnection; conversely new markets for VLSI will be created by emerging flat-panel display capabilities.