A tenth of a millimeter might not seem like much, but in the competitive world of flat-panel televisions it's enough for Samsung to steal the thinnest-TV crown from Philips.

At an event in South Korea last week Samsung unveiled a prototype 40-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) that is just 7.9 millimeters thin. That beats an 8mm-thin, 32-inch prototype Philips had on show at the IFA exhibition in Berlin in August.

Both prototypes gained some thinness by having the tuner and some other electronics separated into a box that's intended to sit alongside the screen. There's no word on when either might become a commercial product.

Samsung was also showing a prototype 52-inch LCD that is 9.9mm thin. That matches the thinness of Sony's ZX1, which is the thinnest LCD television yet to be announced as an actual product. While Sony is due to begin selling the ZX1 on Nov. 10 in Japan and soon after in Europe, Samsung doesn't have any details on when its set might hit the market.