Difference Between TFT and Plasma

TFT vs Plasma
Thin Film Transistor or more commonly known as TFT is a type of semiconductor that is used mainly as a component in LCD displays while plasma comes from noble gases that are electrically heated to produce the light in a plasma display. These are the two main technologies that are used today in almost all of the newer TV screens in the market, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

It is usually easy to distinguish a TFT display and a plasma display from each other just by looking at them. TFT elements are very thin and are placed on a firm substrate to produce a display. The resulting device is relatively thin especially with edge LED lighting. Plasmas are relatively thicker but can also achieve much bigger sizes compared to TFT. Plasma screens can be as large as 150 inches diagonally while TFT displays over 50 inches are already difficult to produce. Large TFT screens are also very expensive to produce and loses out to plasmas in terms of price after a certain size.

The major drawback of plasma technology is the amount of power consumed relative to other displays. Most of this power is spent in keeping the noble gas in plasma state. A plasma display can consume up to twice the amount used by a similarly sized TFT display, which is very significant. Plasmas can also suffer from burn-in where a ghost of an image is left when it is shown in prolonged periods. An example of this is when you regularly watch a channel that displays their logo at a certain location all the time. You would still see an image of the logo even when you change the channel. This has been a very serious issue at first since the burned images become irritating once you have a lot of them on the screen. But further developments in technology have begun to address these problems and the gap between the two types of displays are beginning to close.

Summary:
1. TFT is a special kind of transistor used mainly in LCD displays while Plasma displays uses noble gases that is turned into plasma by electricity
2. TFT displays are usually thinner and lighter than plasma
3. Displays made out of TFT cannot compete with the size of plasma displays
4. Plasmas consume a lot of power compared to TFT
5. Plasma suffers from burn-in which does not happen with TFT

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