It's reported that a 40-inch target is mass-produced and ready for retail in the same time frame. As always, Panasonic simply confirms that they're investing heavily into the tech and goes about their business.
As we've been saying for years, OLED is the upcoming be-all, end-all HDTV technology. The prototypes we've seen at CES in the past couple of years have been spectacular in terms of image quality, and the ultra thin displays crush even the slimmest prototype LCD and plasma HDTVs around. Though pretty much every major display manufacturer is diving head first into the technology, projections for actual mass production have generally targeted 2012 for the actual launch of relatively small (37-inch) OLED HDTVs for the masses.
It's reported that Panasonic is leading the OLED pack and may beat competitors to market with large-screen OLED displays. Thanks to the rapid construction of a $2.8-billion manufacturing plant, Panasonic expects to have 40-inch OLED panels coming off the production line in 2010, with full commercialization by 2011. Such a plan would put Panasonic in the lead against Sony and Sharp, companies that so far have cited 2012 or later for the launch of similarly sized OLED displays.
