The new press joins an elite club that includes the Inca Onset, Agfa M-Press and the EFI Vutek.

The UV large format machine has been designed for the production of point-of-sale, exhibition and display graphics as well as signage and backlit displays.

The Scitex FB7500, which was revealed at SGIA '08 in Georgia, USA on 15 October, is being aimed at large-format offset and screen printers moving into the digital arena.

Laura de la Pascua, UK and Ireland, large format printing marketing in HP's IPG, said the new flatbed represents a "revolution in productivity that gives screen printers the opportunity to enter the digital print market".

She added: "The large format, high-volume sector is a very competitive one but the Scitex FB7500 makes our portfolio stronger than ever before."

The flatbed machine features a raft of production modes ranging from production operation with printing speeds up to 500 m2 an hour to best quality mode at 140m2 an hour, which is designed for up-close prints.

The new Scitex incorporates 312 HP Scitex X2 drop-on-demand piezoelectric inkjet printheads and can support resolutions up to 500dpi. It uses FB220 UV Inks, which are claimed to produce low levels of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

HP's new flatbed can prints on substrates up to 3.2 x 1.65m and on thicknesses up to 25mm thick.

François Martin, marketing director, EMEA, Graphics Solutions Business, HP Imaging and Printing Group, said: "We want to accelerate the level of digital penetration in the large-format market, the new Scitex helps us do that."

The HP Scitex FB7500 Printer will be available for purchase worldwide in May 2009.

HP also revealed a brace of other new Scitex machines at the US show, which included the FB950, designed for point-of-sale and event signage, and the TJ8550.

The show also marked the US debut of the Designjet L65500 Printer, the first of a new category of large-format signage printers to feature HP Latex Inks.