rAVe Europe reported this week that while Panasonic is also cooperating with other partners to develop OLED technology, the Nikkei business daily in Japan says a new joint venture between Panasonic and Sumitomo Chemical aims to develop and manufacture 40-inch or bigger OLED panels by 2010.

In an LCD, tiny packets of liquid crystal make up each pixel. These don’t actually radiate any light. Instead they change their structure when hit by voltage, so they need a backlight (cold-cathode or LED). In OLED, each pixel is an array of itsy-bitsy colored LEDs that glows in corresponding color initiated by the TV signal.

You can view OLED screens from any angle and they can show a wider range of colors (and black areas are a deeper black). Because they don’t need a backlight they can be much thinner while actually consuming less electricity.

Read the Reuters story here.