Today I had a chance to visit the Epson high temperature poly-silicon (HTPS) 3LCD factory in Chitose, Japan. This also happens to be the home of the local Kirin brewery, the second factory tour of the day. The combination of the two plant tours provided both good information as well as the opportunity to have a little fun.

Chris Chinnock
Senior Analyst and Editor
for Insight Media

The Epson factory is an hour and a half flight north of Tokyo on the Island of Hokkaido. The plant started operation in April 2005 and is operating at near capacity now, but the facility is only 30% full, allowing for plenty of expansion in the future. What is impressive about this facility is that it is fully automated with robots transporting cassettes full of 12-inch wafers from process station to process station. The 3000 square meters clean room did have a few people inside of it, but according to our hosts, they were only doing maintenance on equipment. This is the largest microdisplay factory in the world producing about 1.3 million 3LCD chipsets for the 2007 fiscal year ended in March 31, 2008. Approximately 80 percent of these chips use the advanced D7 (inorganic alignment layer) process.

Epson management presented some impressive statistics for the facility compared to the more "standard" processes used at its original plant in Suwa-Minami, such as:

• Reduction of the average wafers in process from 5000 to 500, minimizing cost and maximizing efficiency
• Reduction of the lead time by 1/3 (it now takes only a week to manufacture a 3LCD chip from start to finish)
• A 2.4x increase in die per wafer in going from 8" to 12" wafers
• A 60 percent reduction in process steps

In fact, Chitose representatives made such a compelling argument for the efficiency and cost effectiveness of their plant, that it occurred to me that they should close the less efficient Suwa Minami plant and expand the capacity at Chitose to give them an increased competitive position. The response to this suggestion: we need two plants for risk reduction due to the many earthquakes in Japan. Maybe so, but I suspect there are many other factors to consider.

The Kirin beer factory provided a nice social event for the tour, which was also sponsored by the 3LCD group. The beer making process was fascinating and the brochure they gave us was filled with hyperbole about the benefits of beer! I thought you’d enjoy just a few of the Kirin Beer Factoids!

• Friends don’t let friends drive drunk
• Drinking in moderation increases longevity
• Hops are credited with being a pain killer, health restorer and blood pressure reducer
• Beer is a nutritional supplement
• Saccharination = the changing of starch to sugar
• A 3 pour (beer) fill offers the best drinking satisfaction
• Beer is made in many churches
• The pyramids were completed thanks to beer
• "If the owner cheats on the portion server, the owner shall be drowned"

While drinking Kirin beer, we created some humorous 3LCD Factoids, but in the interest of world peace, we’re not going to publish them!