For those of you starving for SED news, here’s the tiniest little morsel. According to a Toshiba blurprint for SED, it looks like full production of SED TV sets won’t happen until early 2008. But for those of you on the lookout for a SED display, you might be able to grab one in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Toshiba Corp. has unveiled its blueprint for SED (surface conduction electron-emitter display) rollout in an announcement of the mid-to-long-term business plan until 2008.

Because SED features lower material costs than LCD, the manufacturing costs, depreciated by facility costs, can be reduced. The company is currently swinging into action to prepare full mass production.

The company plans to start the initial mass production of SED panels at the conventional plant in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa prefecture, in July 2007, with the size of 55-inch, and then bring the world’s first SED TVs to the market from the fourth quarter of 2007. Full production in volume will be performed in the Himeji line from early 2008, and the sales of SED TV sets will target the Beijing Olympics in 2008, according to the company.

SED is a technology many of us are watching with avid interest. My big reservation is that it still uses phosphors, like CRT and plasma, and is therefore subject to burn-in.

Toshiba to Launch SED TV in 4Q 2007