Nowadays, developers are using different technologies and solutions for creating flat panel displays, though LCD screens still have a dominating position in the market. The technologies, implemented in the production of modern displays, can be divided into two groups. The first group includes devices, which are based on the light emission. These are CRT and PDP displays. The second group contains translation devices, i.e. LCD monitors. Both groups of devices have certain advantages and disadvantages.

One of the most progressive technologies for today is field emission displays (FED). LCD screens work with the reflected light. FED panels generate the light by themselves. It makes them similar to CRT and PDP screens. FED characteristics state that each pixel in these devices has its own electrode and the width of the panel is only some millimeters. At the same time, each pixel is controlled directly as in LCD displays with an active matrix. The history of FED devices is going from the development in the middle of 1990. At that time the engineers were trying to create a really flat television tube.

Another technology, which is similar to FED characteristics, is SED (Surfaceconduction Electronemitter Display). The Canon Corporation started developing this technology in 1986. However, these works were not developed for a long time due to some reasons. The Toshiba Corporation joined this process in 1999 with their experience in the CRT production. Moreover, Canon bought all the rights from Candescent Technologies for its intelligent property. That company developed a FED device by their own technology ThinCRT. By the experts' opinion the solution, received by Canon from Candescent Technologies, provided significant improvements for their own SED technology.

The alliance of Canon and Toshiba presented the first prototype of the SED display at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies. There are the following FED characteristics for the device - the diagonal is 36 inches, the contrast of the image is 8600:1. The main advantage of the SED display is only 160 Wt. Simultaneously, the LCD display with the analogue diagonal screen has 200 Wt. The PDP display has the power supply 350 Wt. The width of the display is only 7 mm. In this way FED characteristics are very interesting and they grant many advantages, concerning new displays properties. New monitors are supposed to be used the video-walls, medical imaging systems and security systems. Nevertheless, the mass production of these models is not implemented yet.

Canon and Toshiba signed the agreement to produce enhanced flat panel SED displays last year. They created the enterprise SED Inc. to implement this project. The enterprise is planning to produce about three thousand SED displays per month during the current year, one point eight million models in 2008, and three million displays in 2010. Toshiba is going to stop the production of plasma monitors and will be focused on the production of a SED TV. It is expected to increase the production of TVs with a screen diagonal larger than 40 inches, almost thrice.