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Samsung, Sony Announce 8G TFT-LCD Panel-manufacturing Project(Taiwan Economic News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Taipei, April 14, 2006 (CENS)--Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of South Korea and Sony Corp. of Japan signed a Letter Of Intent (LOI) on April 10 to manufacture eighth-generation (8G) thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels at their joint venture, S-LCD Corp. (S-LCD), after Taiwan's No. 1 panel maker AU Optronics Corp. (AUO) recently announced its merger with No. 4 Quanta Display Inc Samsung and Sony plan to establish an 8G amorphous TFT-LCD panel production line at S-LCD that will produce glass panels with an approximate size of 2,200mm by 2,500mm. S-LCD is currently manufacturing 7G TFT LCD panels. The two companies plan to invest approximately US$2 billion in the 8G panel facility, and actual production is targeted to start in the fall of 2007 with a planned production capacity of 50,000 panels per month Industry sources pointed out that the announcement of S-LCD's new project seemed tailored to show Samsung's intention to further consolidate its world No. 1 position in the LCD line and to show its determination to compete with the newly merged Taiwanese panel giant David Hsieh, president of the DisplaySearch Taiwan Office, analyzed that the early announcement of the 8G project, which is still in the early-draft stage, seemed to be highly related to AUO and Quanta's merger. In the future, the local president added, the competition between panel suppliers in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan will likely grow even fiercer According to Frank Wang, an industry analyst with Morgan Stanley in Taipei, the AUO-Quanta merger surprised Samsung and Sony and drove them to accelerate the deployment of their 8G project. In their press release for the 8G project, Samsung and Sony stated that the demand for LCD TVs is expanding, with the large-screen TV market expected to be especially dynamic from now on. "By launching a 8G panel production line, Samsung will target further business expansion in the LCD panel market for LCD TVs, and Sony will continue to proactively focus on cost-competitive and high-quality large screen products targeting an expansion of its LCD TV business," they said In addition to S-LCD's 8G line, Sharp's 8G panel plant, the first of its kind in the world, is scheduled to begin mass production in October this year. The confrontation between top-two LCD brands Sony and Sharp is expected to help further enlarge the global demand for LCD TVs larger than 50 inches, which are expected to gradually eat into the market share of 42-inch plasma display panels (PDPs). |