The authors report the fabrication and characterization of a 4.5 in. field emission display (FED) prototype. The FED prototype consists of 14 X 14 matrix addressable pixels. The pixel is 5 mm in diameter. The characteristics including current-voltage properties, current stability, brightness, and image quality of the display prototype were characterized. The average static brightness of the 2 display prototype is 2500 cd/m(2). Characters were displayed in a scanning pulsed driving mode. The adjacent pixels are tangent to each other, making continuous display feature. The results show that the FED prototype has promising potential for high-resolution giant display application. (C) 2007 American Vacuum Society.