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SmarthouseNews: Sharp has announced that it will establish a new LCD panel plant and facility for the mass production of 10G LCD panels and thin-film solar cells.

The LCD panel plant will be the first in the world to use tenth-generation (10G) glass substrates (2,850×3,050mm), 60 percent larger than the 8G substrates used at Kameyama Plant No. 2.

A 10G glass substrate will yield six LCD panels in the 60-inch class, eight panels in the 50-inch class, or 15 panels in the 40-inch class, making it possible to fabricate LCD panels for large-screen TVs with extremely high levels of efficiency.

Construction is slated to start in November of this year, with production operations scheduled to start by March 2010.

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DigiTimes: Samsung and Sony may invest in a second eighth-generation (8G) LCD facility if demand rises further, according to a report from Dow Jones citing Sang Wan Lee, chief executive of Samsung’s LCD business.

Samsung has already teamed up with Sony on one seventh-generation (7G) plant and an 8G plant. The 7G plant kicked off production in April 2005 while the 8G plant, which will mainly be used to produce LCD panels for 52-inch-or-larger LCD TVs, will commence operations in fall 2007 in Tangjeong, South Korea, according to Samsung.

Sharp is currently the only maker to have commenced 8G production. The Japan-based company’s 8G plant started volume production in August of this year.

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CNet: Sharp has produced a 64-inch LCD screen that provides resolution four times that of normal high-definition screens.

Normal HD screens have 2 million pixel points. The new prototype Sharp monitor, which is on display at the Ceatec technology trade show in Japan this week, sports 4,096 x 2,160 pixel-line resolution – double the number of vertical and horizontal pixel lines offered by a normal HD screen.

This comes out to 8.84 million pixels

Small details, like plumes of smoke over an aerial shot of a rural village, can be picked out. The monitor can also be divided into quarters and display four high-definition videos at once.

The screen, still in the development phase, will be targeted at film and television producers as well as medical researchers.

In August, Sharp formally began producing LCD panels out of its second Kameyama plant. The plant processes eighth-generation glass sheets, which measure just over 7 feet by 8 feet. Six 52-inch LCDs can be popped out of a single sheet. The smaller glass sheets processed in sixth- and seventh-generation plants can only produce two and three 52-inch panels, respectively, out of a single piece of glass.

Other prototypes being shown include a screen with a technology Sharp calls Mega Contrast. The screen has a 1 million-to-1 contrast ratio. Typical HD LCD screens sport a 1,200-to-1 contrast ratio.

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DigiTimes: S-LCD, the joint venture of Samsung and Sony, plan to begin production of their eighth-generation (8G) TFT LCD plant 2-3 months earlier than planned, according to the Korean-language Digital Times.

Reuters also recently reported that Sharp will push up the schedule for its second-phase expansion plan for its 8G plant, but the exact time frame is still unavailable.

In July, Samsung and Sony said they plan to invest approximately US$1.9 billion (with each company providing half) to establish an 8G LCD plant, with production to start in October 2007 with a monthly capacity of 50,000 glass substrates.  Production is now expected to begin far sooner.

Sharp’s 8G plant started volume production earlier in August this year and the company said at that time it planned to launch a second-stage expansion in March 2007, with monthly capacity to double to 30,000 substrates.

The plants of both S-LCD and Sharp will focus mainly on 40 and 50-inch TV panels.

The later generation a factory is, the bigger glass it can handle.  And the bigger glass it can handle, the more individual screens it can cut, reducing unit costs.

In the second quarter of 2006, Sharp and Sony ranked second and fourth in the global LCD TV market, according to research firm Display Search.

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