Flat TVs depend on silver

The large-screen flat-panel-display (FPD) television sets featured in home entertainment showrooms rely on a new technology wholly dependent on silver.

The FPD model has been on the market for four years, and sales have been growing at more than 20% annually.

Major electronics firms Samsung, Fujitsu, Phillips, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, Pioneer and Mitsubishi are all committed to improving FPD technology and decreasing the costs of production. FPD 42-inch sets were recently selling for about $12,000, though soon this will be cut nearly in half as a result of improvements and economies-of-scale.

FPDs consist of two parallel flat sheets of glass. On the back of the glass facing the viewer is a grid of thousands of lines of silver, each of which is thinner than a human hair. These lines conduct electronic signals, which activate a special gas that hits colour phosphors and more lines of silver on the opposite pane. On impact, these colour phosphors react by flashing colour for the picture seen by the viewer.

The FPD is a milestone achievement in micro-electronics. It can literally “hang on the wall,” and has rendered the bulky cathode-ray-tube television obsolete. The large TV display panels have found not only enthusiastic users in the home but also in industry. Large flat panels display fine details in manufacturing processes and, with built-in interactive capability, allow plant operators to touch the screen and control, change or shut down a process without using a computer keyboard. This convenience is important in food processing, pharmaceuticals, and industries in which aggressive sanitation runs the risk of damaging keyboards. For these applications, FPDs are often housed in a variety of mounts, such as stainless steel.

Silver is an active metal and can tarnish, but this drawback has been overcome by the use of hermetic enclosures within FPDs.

Consulting firm DisplaySearch estimates that 1.8 million FPD TVs were sold in 2002 and that this figure could double in 2003 as more consumers replace old TV sets. Manufacturers are mum on the amount of silver used in FPDs, though it is believed to average 1 gram per unit, in which case about 113,000 oz. would be consumed in 2003. Electrical and electronic applications consumed 132.5 million oz. silver in 2001.

— The preceding is an excerpt from Silver News, a quarterly publication of the Washington, D.C.-based Silver Institute.