To progress and reinforce the plasma display panel (PDP) business, Pioneer Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd reported Thursday that they have reached a basic agreement on a comprehensive PDP business alliance that covers R&D, strategic production and supply of PDP and modules.

The two companies said further details will be released next month when they conclude a formal agreement on the PDP business alliance.

Both Pioneer and Matsushita play in the plasma TV market under their respective brands 'Kuro' and 'Viera,' respectively, and believe the alliance will bring about significant synergy effects by the integration of Pioneer's 'Kuro' technologies, touted as having high luminance efficiency, high contrast and slim design, with 'NeoPDP,' Matsushita's technology for high efficiency that has been developed as evolutionary technologies of the next-generation 'Viera' plasma displays.

Also, by developing PDPs and modules that are eco-friendly and excel in performance and picture-quality, Pioneer and Matsushita said they are contributing to further growth of plasma TVs in the flat-panel TV market.

Under their collaboration, Pioneer and Matsushita will develop and manufacture PDPs and modules. Matsushita said it plans to start supplying these PDPs and modules in time for Pioneer's release of new PDP products which will be available in the autumn of 2009.

By promoting the integration of their PDP technologies and sharing the same PDP, the companies said they intend to increase efficiency in panel development and production and boost cost competitiveness in the flat-panel TV market.

Panel sizes will be discussed later in consideration of customer demand, market competitiveness and the size of panels currently marketed by Pioneer.

Finally, Pioneer and Matsushita added that they will continue to supply their own plasma TVs to meet growing consumer demand worldwide by taking advantage of their proprietary image processing technologies as well as the fruits of this business alliance.

In early 2007, Matsushita and diversified chemical group Toray Industries Inc announced plans to spend about $2.3 billion (280 billion Japanese yen) to build a PDP manufacturing facility in Japan.