A group of US companies headed by AT&T Co and Xerox Corp have come together to propose a High-Definition Display Manufacturing Consortium and lobby Washington for funding to get the US back in the flat-panel display business, the Washington Post reports. They plan to submit their proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on January 15: the Agency is planning to contribute $12m as seed money for the first year; Pentagon funding is expected to increase substantially once the project gets under way. US companies currently account for less than 5% of a $3,500m industry that is expected to grow to $7,500m by 1995. Two of the small band of US flat panel display makers, Standish Industries Inc of Lake Mills, Wisconsin and Optical Imaging Systems Inc of Troy, Michigan would be members of the core group in the proposed consortium. Separately, Optical Imaging, which has got closer to Apple Computer Inc of late, is now asking the US Commerce Department to lift the anti-dumping duties imposed on Japanese active matrix thin film displays the duties have forced the likes of Apple Computer Inc and IBM Corp to build their notebooks outside the US.
