Five foot flat screens
Sony and Sharp have announced that they’ve signed a “non-binding memorandum of intent to establish a joint venture to produce and sell large sized LCD panels and modules, by splitting out from Sharp an LCD panel plant now under construction in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture which will use 10th generation mother glass substrates,” according to a Sony press release today.
What this means, in effect, is that the 10th gen plant will be able to use a substrate that is approximately nine square metres in size – 60 per cent larger than current 8th gen substrates – that will yield either six LCD panels in the 60-inch class, eight panels in the 50-inch class, or 15 panels in the 40-inch class.
Production is expected to commence by March 2010. Sharpe will own two thirds of the joint venture and Sony the remaining third. The LCDs it produces will be allocated to the two companies in proportion to their shareholding.
"Sony needed an extra source of panels because the large-size LCD TV market is growing faster than it had expected. As Sony expands TV production, it is natural to seek to diversify panel sources," Park Hyun, an analyst at Prudential Investment and Securities, told Reuters. He went on to say that he didn’t think this would have an impact on Sony’s alliance with Samsung.
What is less clear is why they use different measurements for describing the size of the substrate and the end product and what happened to the ninth generation of LCD technology.
Related reading: Sony announces two beefed-up Blu-ray players
