Canon and Toshiba announced that they were working on a technology called SED some years ago. SED utilized similar principles as the CRT technology – only this time as a flat screen panel. Toshiba was forced to leave the partnership because of legal struggles that has been going on ever since. But now Canon wishes to bring new aspects to the TV market and resume their plan to make SED-TVs.

The legal struggles with Applied Nanotech that accused Canon of using the licensed SED patens illegally has now ended. The court proceedings have lasted for more than three years now.

Now Canon has announced that they will pursue TV sets based on the Surface Conduction Electron Emitter technology once more. The first step is to re-establish the Research and Development department that has been put on hold because of the patent violation.


SED-TV prototype

The SED technology is said to have superior picture quality with wide viewing angles and better colours and blacks. It has a lot of the same advantages that the cathode ray tube TVs (CRT) have, only without the disadvantages. SED also boasts higher resolution – for example Full HD.

Canon presented the first SED model in 2006. Since then brands such as Samsung and Sony has presented the OLED technology that achieve similar picture characteristics to the SED – and more. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see if the SED will be available on the consumer market.

If Canon decides to launch a TV set based on SED we might expect to see the 55-inch model from CES in Las Vegas. The TV has a response time of less than 1 ms and an actual contrast ratio of 50000:1.