Vacuum nanoelectronics has been expected to provide a number of advanced devices such as flat panel displays, high-frequency devices and so on. Especially, field emission displays (FEDs) including Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Displays (SEDs) have been showing tremendous progress and become attractive nanoelectronic technology for a new generation of flat panel displays. However, there are important limitations of their reliability and efficiency in FEDs and SEDs, mainly attributed to the emitters. The Transfer Mold emitters, the carbon nanotube emitters and the surface conduction electron emitters (SCEs) have been the candidates for getting and controlling the emitter structures. In this paper, the recent progress and the technical issues on FEDs and SEDs are overviewed.