sharp lcd panel factory made in china

LCD displays are still going to be around for a long time, at least for smart TVs such as the ones that use Android TV and other operating systems. Today, the massive electronic manufacturing company Foxconn announced a new partnership with Sharp to build and operate a new TV LCD flat-panel factory in China, which will cost $8.8 billion.AMOLED displays set to close in on LCD this year

Reuters reports that the new factory will help with the expected demand of new flat-screen TVs in Asia. Foxconn said that the LCD factory will make 10.5-generation 8K displays, along with screens for smart TVs and electronic whiteboards. Production is expected to begin in 2019.

This news comes even as other companies are embracing OLED displays for both TV as well as smartphones. However, there’s still some life in the LCD market. Panasonic recently announced an LCD IPS display with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. It is supposed to have 600 times more contrast compared to normal LCD panels, and those levels are close to those found in OLED displays.

On 31st August, Sharp Corporation has signed an agreement with Nanjing CEC-PANDA LCD Technology Co., Ltd (hereafter �New company�) to carry out the project for production of LCD panels using 6th generation glass substrates and construction of its LCD panel plant. This new company is an LCD production company established jointly by Nanjing-city and Nanjing China Electronics Panda Group Corporation*1 (hereafter �CEC Panda�).

Sharp will collaborate with the new company on construction of the LCD panel plant adopting the 6th generation glass substrates in Nanjing-city and production of LCD panels, by providing its LCD production technology and know-how as well as the sales of 6th generation production equipment of Kameyama Plant No.1 incorporating cutting-edge production technology. The plant is scheduled to start operation by March 2011.

In addition to the production of LCD panels using the 6th generation glass substrates, Sharp, Nanjing-city and China Electronics Corporation*2(hereafter �CEC�) have signed a memorandum of intent (hereafter �MOI�) to establish a joint venture to produce LCD panels using 8th generation glass substrates, to meet the ever-growing demand for LCD panels in Chinese market.

Furthermore, to strengthen the LCD panel production and LCD TV businesses in China, together with the above LCD panel project, Sharp will establish an �LCD R&D Center (hereafter �R&D Center�)� to research and develop from LCD panels to LCD TVs. In April 2010, Sharp is planning to construct the center in Nanjing-city.

In 2001, Sharp started assembly of LCD TVs in its Nanjing plant and has been conducting integrated production from LCD modules to LCD TV assembly from 2006. The LCD panel production and establishment of the R&D Center will realize vertically integrated production extending from R&D, production of LCD panels and modules, to assembly of the LCD TVs in China. The investment and business operation of LCD related companies are expected to become more active to form a �Crystal Valley in Nanjing-City� in the near future.

To meet the increasing demand for LCD panels from worldwide TV manufacturers, Sharp has been increasing the production capacity of Kameyama Plant No.2 from this August. In addition, Sharp is planning to start operation of a new LCD panel plant in Sakai-city from this October, as well as starting LCD panel production project in China. Sharp will continue to strengthen its global production system to achieve greater cost competitiveness.

Japan"s Sharp said Thursday it will team with a large Chinese manufacturer to build a factory in Nanjing and mass-produce LCD screens for TVs, computers and tablets.

Sharp said it will form a joint venture with China Electronics Corp. (CEC) to manage the project, and aims to begin production in June 2015. The plant will eventually handle 60,000 LCD panels per month, each measuring 2.2 x 2.5 meters, which can then be divided into smaller sizes for consumer products.

Although Sharp is struggling with massive losses and going through a major restructuring to rebuild its finances, the company is still one of the largest LCD display makers in the world and possesses cutting-edge technology. Japan"s Nikkei newspaper reported that as part of the deal, Sharp will transfer its technology for producing IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) screens to the venture and will receive payment in the "tens of billions of yen" in return, part of which it will use to fund the new investment.

IGZO allows for higher resolutions and lower power drain than traditional LCD screens, and devices that use the technology are beginning to appear on the market. Sharp has launched smartphones and tablets with IGZO screens, and Samsung Electronics, Asustek Computer and Fujitsu are all releasing laptops that use the technology.

Rumors have long circulated that Samsung and Apple are looking to build smartphones using IGZO screens. A second factory that can produce the technology would help allay fears of being dependent on a single supplier.

The new venture will be called Nanjing CEC-Panda LCD Technology and will be funded by a 17.5 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion) investment, 92 percent from CEC Group and 8 percent from Sharp. It will be officially established in March of next year.

Sharp said the Chinese plant will allow production at lower costs than its current factories, and it will retain the right to buy the panels produced at the new facility.

Sharp has been aggressively pursuing deals with foreign partners to shore up its finances as it looks to recover from deep losses. Since last year it has signed deals with Samsung, Foxconn and Qualcomm for joint production and research.

As a result of a deal announced in August 2009, Sharp and CEC already operate a Chinese joint venture producing smaller LCD panels, to which Sharp transferred some of its older technology. They said at the time they would negotiate a deal to build larger panels in the future.

Sharp booked a ¥545 billion loss last fiscal year but forecasts it can rebound to a ¥5 billion profit during the current period. It said Thursday that the finances of the new deal are already factored into its current forecast.

According to a Reuters report, Apple’s largest contract manufacturer Foxconn is planning to build an $8.8 billion factory in collaboration with Sharp in China, that will produce advanced liquid-crystal displays (LCDs). The project is aimed at increasing production to meet rising demand for large-screen LCD TVs and monitors in Asia.

The $8.8 billion investment to build the flat-panel factory will be made by Sakai Display Products Corp., which is mostly owned by Foxconn Group’s founder Terry Gou. The new plant in Guangzhou, which will have annual production capacity equating to $13.25 billion, will be a so-called Gen-10.5 facility specializing in large-screen LCDs and will be operational by 2019, according to Foxconn.

Global LCD output was hit this year by the closure of a Samsung factory that accounted for 3 percent of the market, as well as factory stoppages in Taiwan after an earthquake in March. China’s largest LCD panel maker, BOE Technology Group, began construction on its own Gen-10.5 plant in Hefei in December last year, with production scheduled to begin in 2018.

Having swiftly approved Samsung’s and LG’s requests to build cutting-edge LCD manufacturing plants in China last year, the Chinese government is having some reservations about giving the go-ahead to a similar application from Sharp Corporation, the Japanese national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has reported. This is due to the Osaka-headquartered TV maker’s reluctance to disclose sensitive details on its latest technologies to Chinese organisations, for fear of intellectual property (IP) theft and the effect on the output of its own Sakai factory.

Sharp had initially intended to construct an eight-generation (G8) LCD panel factory in Nanjing, but Yomiuri‘s sources have revealed that Beijing is applying pressure on the Japanese HDTV manufacturer to deploy its tenth-generation (G10) LCD display technology instead in China. With each progressive generation of LCD manufacturing plant, larger sheets of “mother glass” (from which a number of panels are cut) can be handled, therefore boosting production efficiency. Eight 46-inch LCD TV panels can be made from a G8 mother glass, whereas a G10 sheet – boasting a total surface area of 8.7m2 – can be divided into eight 60-inch panels.

Currently, Sharp’s G10 LCD TV panels are produced in the conglomerate’s Sakai plant in the Osaka Prefacture, which is primed for the export of large-sized LCD television panels. However, with Sony seeking to procure cheaper LCD TV panels from Taiwanese manufacturers rather than investing more capital into the Sakai plant as originally agreed, Sharp is worried that the opening of a second Gen 10 plant will lead to an unwanted scenario of excessive manufacturing capacity unless the output from the Sakai factory is scaled down (which in itself is inefficient too).

Sharp’s request to set up a G8 LCD panel factory in Nanjing was submitted as a joint venture with a Chinese electronics firm. The Japanese corporation is also concerned that if it upgrades the Nanjing LCD-making facility to G10 as demanded by the Chinese government, there is a possibility its most advanced technological blueprints may be compromised by data leakage.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Sharp Corp, a leading supplier of displays to Apple Inc, said Thursday it will form a $2.9 billion alliance with state-owned China Electronics Corp that includes an agreement by Sharp to license its advanced power-saving IGZO screen technology.

The new venture will be 92 percent owned by China Electronics, also known as CEC, which supplies equipment to China’s military. The venture will set up a an LCD plant with the goal of mass-producing panel displays for televisions, notebook PCs and tablets in 2015.

Licensing IGZO, or indium gallium zinc oxide displays, fits into a strategy by cash-strapped Sharp to leverage its technology to bolster its finances. Sharp, in December, signed a pact with Qualcomm Inc, selling the U.S. company an equity stake for $120 million and agreeing to develop new screens based on IGZO technology.

IGZO screens boast power consumption as low as a tenth of conventional LCDs, high resolutions and faster reaction speeds. While an agreement to license the technology to a Chinese military-linked state company may raise eyebrows, Sharp does not exclusively own the technology, only being the first to commercialize it.

The agreement, which is a revised version of one agreed to with CEC in 2009, may instead represent a retreat by the Chinese company to win access to Sharp’s more advanced tenth-generation LCD manufacturing techniques. CEC is planning to build an 8.5 generation facility.

Sharp is the only panel maker in the world to have built a tenth generation factory able to fabricate liquid crystal sandwiched in glass sheets thinner than a credit card that are 3.13 meters long by 2.88 meters wide. Smaller 8.5 generation sheets measure 2.2 meters by 2.5 meters.

CEC in November blamed deteriorating ties between Japan and China over their territorial spat in the East China Sea for shelving cooperation with Sharp to build a tenth-generation facility. Sharp, which sold a stake in its advanced LCD plant to Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry last year, says no such agreement ever existed.

Thursday’s deal, including the construction of the 8.5 generation factory in Nanjing, represents one of the highest-profile transactions between a Chinese and Japanese company since tensions flared last year over a chain of disputed islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

A Sharp spokesman declined to say how much in royalties the company expected to receive for the technology transfer. A portion of those proceeds will be used to fund Sharp’s 8 percent stake in the joint venture, the spokesman said.

The new joint-venture will represent a total investment of $2.9 billion for Sharp, which was rescued in October by its banks. To rebuild its business, Sharp has also sought closer ties to Samsung Electronics, selling it a 3 percent stake for $103 million and pledging to supply it with small display screens.

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

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Foxconn Technology Group founder Terry Gou announced plans to build an $8.8 billion television flat-panel factory in Guangzhou, China, depicting the region as an “investment treasure land” amid calls to move tech manufacturing to the U.S.

The new factory will make advanced liquid-crystal displays with technology from Sharp Corp., the Japanese electronics brand acquired this year by Foxconn.

The $8.8 billion (61 billion yuan) investment to build the flat-panel factory will be made by Sakai Display Products Corp., which is mostly owned by Mr. Gou personally. Sharp owns a minority stake in Sakai. Mr. Gou has sometimes taken on riskier investments for Foxconn under his personal portfolio, saying that it was safer for Foxconn shareholders.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A joint venture between Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, known as Foxconn, and Sharp Corpplans to build a 61 billion yuan ($8.8 billion) factory in China to produce liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).

Sakai Display Products Corp’s plant will be a so-called Gen-10.5 facility specializing in large-screen LCDs and will be operational by 2019, the company said at a signing event with local officials in Guangzhou on Friday. It said the plant will have capacity equating to 92 billion yuan a year.

Global LCD output was hit this year by the closure of a Samsungfactory that accounted for 3 percent of the market, as well as factory stoppages in Taiwan after an earthquake in March.

China’s largest LCD panel maker, BOE Technology Group, began construction on its own Gen-10.5 plant in Hefei in December last year, with production scheduled to begin in 2018.

In May Shenzhen China Optoelectronics Technology Co, asubsidiary of TCL Corp, announced that it would begin construction on a 50 billion yuan LCD plant in Shenzhen.

The venture will also sell 436,000 shares for 17.1 billion yuan to an investment co-owned by Hon Hai Chairman Terry Gou, giving Hon Hai a 53 percent interest in the business and lowering Sharp’s stake from to 26 percent from 40 percent.

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This file photo shows Sharp LCD products displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, on January 9, 2009. Troubled Japanese electronics giant is to produce cutting-edge LCD panels for smartphones in a Chinese joint venture from as early as 2015, according to a report.

Troubled Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp is to produce cutting-edge LCD panels for smartphones in a Chinese joint venture from as early as 2015, a report said on Wednesday.

Sharp will provide its prized IGZO panel technology to a new Nanjing factory being built by local giant Nanjing China Electronics Panda Group, the Nikkei newspaper said.

Sharp will receive tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) in licensing fees for sharing its energy-efficient and high-quality IGZO, the newspaper said.

Sharp has been going through a massive restructuring programme to rebuild itself, as it continues to suffer huge losses that have threatened its survival.

Sharp is the latest Apple supplier to announce plans to move part of its production out of China. The news follows Trump’s latest escalation of the US trade war with China …

Sharp, which makes sensors, camera modules and screens for Apple Inc’s iPhones, said late on Thursday the new plant in Vietnam will make flat screens, electronic devices and air purifiers from the fiscal year starting in April next year.

The plant will allow it to shift part of its production from China if requested by customers, a Sharp executive said on Thursday after announcing a plan to set up a unit in Vietnam with $25 million capital to manage the factory.

Just last week, we learned about the surprising news, reported on by almost all of the media in Japan, that Sharp had notified Samsung it would no longer supply it with LCD panels starting in 2017. In that situation, much like this one, word was that price negotiations had broken down between the parties working on a new supply agreement. In effect, Sharp had terminated Samsung…their largest LCD panel customer.

Now reports are that Sharp is taking the same position with China’s Hisense, another large TV manufacturer. Certainly, like other media, we have been reporting on Sharp’s many problems, including their struggle with generating substantial annual financial losses. In fact, it was their deteriorating financial condition that drove them into the arms of Terry Gou, chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the large Taiwanese OEM manufacturer that is better known as Apple, Inc. supplier Foxconn Technology Group.

Foxconn has vowed to right the Sharp ship and to drive the company back to profitability again. As such, with Foxconn now calling the shots, Sharp executives are said to be adopting tough tactics in negotiating for more profitable panel pricing with TV manufacturers. But customers like Samsung and Hisense are pushing back.

Some in the industry told us that they thought that Sharp’s strategy was crazy. Samsung, they suggested, would simply go to another supplier to get the panels they need…and Sharp would be the ultimate loser. But the calculation of who wins and who loses is not quite that easy.

Market reports showed clearly that Samsung was absolutely scrambling to find alternative suppliers of quality LCD panels at this late date. Sharp, one report indicated, had supplied Samsung with 5 million panels in 2015 (the last full year for which data was available). This number was likely even higher in 2016.

So can’t Samsung simply increase their orders with their other panel suppliers? Most OEM manufacturers need to hit a certain capacity level in order to efficiently – and hopefully profitably – manufacture their panels. Too little capacity and they won’t get the supply contract. Too much capacity and then they have factories, lines, and machines sitting idle – a very expensive proposition that takes a bite directly out of their bottom line.

Hence, as we reported last week, Samsung was scrambling to find enough supply to meet their projected unit needs. How hard was this going to be? Apparently, so hard that Samsung was forced to go, hat in hand, to archrival LG to ask them to supply LCD panels. These companies are not friends. In fact, they are brutal competitors, locked in a battle to dominate the business both in their local South Korean market…and around the world.

The Nikkei is reporting that there may be another strategy behind Sharp’s new, tougher negotiating stance. Foxconn is said to be planning on a resurgence of sales of Sharp’s Aquos premium line of LCD TVs. In fact, Foxconn is projecting that they will double sales to 10 million units in fiscal 2018, their next fiscal year.

One way they will do that is by exanding their global market presence. But this plan has some challenges. As Sharp sought to cut the losses of their TV division, they decided to pull out of the North American market and license their brand to a third-party TV manufacturer. Now they want the market back.

If Foxconn is planning a major Sharp comeback, then terminating panel supply agreements with other manufacturers could be an effort to build panel supply for a new wave of Sharp branded and manufactured TVs…including those targeted for North America.

But it also could be a squeeze play on Hisense…cutting their supply so that they are unable to take advantage of holding the license for the North American market. If they have no TVs to sell in North America, Hisense would be more likely to sell the license back to Sharp.