Picture This: TV Uses Organic Light Emitting Diode Technology

By BRAD GRAVES

Three millimeters is the depth of three credit cards stacked together in a wallet.

It is also the depth of a flat-screen TV that Sony Electronics Inc. showed off last week at the 2008 International CES, also known as the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas.

Sony, which has its U.S. headquarters in Rancho Bernardo, is one of several companies with San Diego County ties that exhibited at the world’s largest trade show for consumer technology, which takes over Las Vegas at the start of each year.

Sharp-eyed people on the hunt for Christmas gifts last month at Fashion Valley Mall may have glimpsed the ultra-flat, 11-inch TV at the Sony Style retail store. But the televisions did not go on sale until they officially debuted at the Las Vegas show. The item retails for $2,500.

The TV creates its pictures using organic light emitting diode technology.

The show is produced by the Consumer Electronics Association, an Arlington, Va.-based trade association promoting growth in the $161 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. This year’s show featured 2,700 companies spanning 1.85 million square feet of exhibit space, the largest in its 41-year history, according to the event’s Web site.