Plasma Display sales are still growing, but the growth and unit quantities are falling way behind LCD TVs. The technology is mature, but the end may be coming for Plasma, according to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. [Subscription Required.]

Plasmas displays were the first popular flat panel displays for HDTV. Each pixel emits its own light resulting in excellent color, and each pixel can go completely dark resulting in high contrast ratios. Despite this, LCD TV sales have completely overrun Plasma sales as a whole.

Plasma TVS are expected to sell 16.9 million units in 2009 compared to 9.3 million in 2006. In contrast, LCD TV sales are expected to triple to 112 million compared to 46 million in 2006, according to DisplaySearch in Austin, Texas.

Matsushita (Panasonic) is the world's largest maker of Plasma displays, and they've continued to thrive. They've recently completed a new factory for plasma components. However, the industry as a whole is adjusting their output, closing old factories, and recognizing that LCD displays are slowly growing in their maximum screen size and competing now in the 40 to 49 inch size, a regime previously dominated by Plasma.

Plasma still dominates in the greater than 50 inch sizes, but LCD will catch up there as well by 2009.

Customers have been selecting LCDs due to their greater brightness, back lit with fluorescent tubes. [TMO notes that, in time, LEDs will take over that job. Also LCD TVs don't need fans and don't suffer from burn-in problems as the older Plasma displays did.]

There is still plenty of life in the Plasma display, but with new technologies appearing all the time and LCDs getting bigger and better, it may not be too much longer before the manufacturers see the light and Plasmas run out of gas.