It may not quite be written in stone yet (or etched in display glass), but Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported this week that Sharp will invest $4.25B - yes, that’s four and a quarter billion US dollars - to build a tenth-generation TFT-LCD manufacturing plant. Construction is slated to begin in 3Q’07, with volume production ramping up in mid-2008. The plant will use glass substrates of 2,850×3,050mm, which can be used to make 57-inch panels 8-up or 65-inch panels 6-up.

Ken Werner
Senior Analyst and Editor
of HDTV Retailer and
Mobile Display Report

Sharp declined to comment on the report, and DisplaySearch said the plan is not yet definite.

Sharp has a history of being more aggressive than other display manufacturers in moving on to next-gen fabs, and the company’s competitors are not rushing to jump on board the 10G train.

Sang-Wan Lee, president of Samsung Electronics’ LCD business, said last fall that Samsung will continue its Gen 8 LCD investments and will invest in Gen 9 LCD production. He left open the possibility of Gen 10 lines at Samsung, but did not embrace the concept with unbridled enthusiasm.

This spring, Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) said it will ramp up volume production at its 8G plant in 2Q’08. But, according to DigiTimes, suppliers said CMO is postponing the installation of equipment at the plant until 2008 to avoid conflicts with the expansion of its 7.5G plant. The expansion schedule was recently delayed in an attempt to manage CMO’s currently excessive manufacturing capacity.

Most panel makers in Taiwan said they will not follow Sharp’s lead in the near or intermediate future, but left open the possibility a Gen 10 plant could be built in Taiwan in 2 or 3 years, according to the Chinese-language Apple Daily.

The most advanced LCD fab in Taiwan today is Gen 6, which has been a source of criticism from private and Taiwan-government technology analysts. But AUO has a Gen 7.5 plant that will start ramping up production of 42-inch panels in October, in addition to CMO’s Gen 7.5.

Taiwan’s Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK) is taking a cautious position on Gen 8 and higher fabs, saying it remains to be seen whether the huge investments needed to build advance-generation LCD fabs are worthwhile, according to DigiTimes. Such fabs only make sense for the manufacturing of large panels, and IEK noted that plasma technology is currently more viable for panels with diagonals of 50 inches or more. A major reason for this is the construction of a PDP plant for these sizes costs only one quarter to one third as much as a TFT-LCD plant, according to IEK.

As discussed in Insight Media’s HDTV Retailer this month, LCD is currently on the verge of closing the price gap with plasma for 42-inch TV sets, which some people doubted would ever happen. Will it happen for 50/52 inches? 57? 65? The answer to that question will answer another: Are the product planners at Sharp inspired - or deluded?