"For most of his time, it seeks a solution to a problem," said Larry Weber (BSEE'69, MSEE'71, PhD'75) technology, which has dedicated his professional life. Today, that "solve" the incredible plasma display panel, invented at the University of Illinois in 1964, seems to have found the problem (not to mention the gold mine) is always deserves: high-definition television (HDTV ) In millions of homes.

Weber's 60-inch plasma display, developed a prototype of Matsushita (Panasonic with the label), combines excellent size and resolution for HDTV with the comfort of thinness. You can even hang on your wall. In fact, one of those miracles hangs on the wall of Weber's New York, Plasmaco, one arm of Matsushita ID. If I see it, you know why the Society for Information Display Weber is the highest prize in 2000 for his contributions to plasma displays.

And you begin to understand why the television industry in 2002 Emmy Award for technological achievement to the original inventor of the user interface of plasma displays: Weber's old professor Donald Bitzer (BSEE'55, MSEE'56, PhD '60) And at the end of the genes Slottow (PhD'64), and whose first graduate student, Robert Willson (PhD'66), whose name along with those of Bitzer and Slottow original in the plasma display patents. Fujitsu, the leading manufacturer of plasma displays, including the award jointly.

Weber, Fujitsu, and others are now clearing the final barrier that separates the plasma displays of long-term profitability: cost. With low-end models sell for about 3000 U.S. dollars, half the price of two years ago, manufacturers seem well on their way in the direction of plasma displays is the ultimate solution to the problem of HDTV.

And yet, Bitzer and Slottow had a problem very different in mind when he created the first shows in Illinois. For them, the plasma display was part of the solution to the problem of computer-based education. What's more, U. S. TV companies, the plasma as soon as alternatives to cathode ray tubes was reduced soon to the idea. A few computer companies stuck with plasma, until another flat-panel technology, liquid crystal display, which is responsible for the market. Apart from that, the military contracts that lasts only a small plasma screen in the industry in the U.S., and U so most students I to the technology (including Willson) finally had to find work in other areas. Meanwhile, the Japanese engineers, whose company sent them long visits to Bitzer's lab, was home to an electronics industry, which now dominates the development and production of plasma displays.