South Korea's Samsung Electron

Samsung's new product, measuring only 6.5 millimetres (0.26 inch) thick, is thinner than any other existing TV set, and even slimmer than most mobile handsets, Samsung said in a statement.

Its thickness is one seventh of Samsung's "Bordeaux 850" LCD TVs, which is currently the thinnest on the market, the company said.

The new product, which adopts an LED (light emitting diode) backlighting system. The backlight sits behind the LCD panel and generates the light that shines through it to allow the image to be seen. Most LCD panels use thicker backlights that make use of fluorescent lights but LEDs are fast finding favor with TV makers for their thinness and better overall light.

The new panel supports a 240Hz refresh rate and Wide Color ControlPro promising a wider spectrum of colors.

Samsung has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at which the TV set is expected to be first shown.

Samsung's LCD TV seems to take the crown of Philips' 8mm prototype LCD TV that was showcased at the IFA electronics show in Berlin last year.

At the same event, Samsung's "rival" LG will have on display its LH95 LED TV with 24.8mm thickness, which supports 240Hz and a 2 million to 1 contrast ratio.

Japanese JVC will showcase a 7mm 32" LED backlight LCD prototype. Weighing a mere 5kg, the TV is perfect for ceiling mounted installations. JVC's super-thin LCD technology uses approximately 50% less material resources and approximately 10% fewer LCD module parts than current comparable JVC displays, while maintaining optical, intensity and low-heat radiation performance, according to the company. Notably, use of LED as the light source eliminates the need for mercury. JVC said that it had also developed new optical elements to realize this new LCD technology, overcoming technological restraints on thin displays to deliver an energy-efficient, high-resolution display exhibiting high contrast and luminance uniformity and a wide color palette.

JVC said that the new LCD prototype will not reach the market before the end of 2009.