Larger LCDs posing production challenges
Spencer Chin
EE Times
(05/23/2005 1:30 PM EDT)
BOSTON, Mass. — Larger, wider displays are likely to become the norm in coming years as liquid crystal display makers ramp up next-generation fabs, but could present some challenges for display and equipment makers, according to speakers at a business conference sponsored by the Society for Information Display here Monday (May 23).
H.B. Chen, president and chief operating officer of Taiwan-based AU Optronics Corp., said the increasing use of LCDs in consumer applications is driving an industry he believes has "unlimited potential", citing not only the much-ballyhooed flat-panel TV market but also the mobile products and automotive markets.
Chen expects LCDs with screen sizes of 17 or 19 in. will comprise 85 percent of the monitor market by 2007, up from 55 percent in 2004. In flat-panel TVs, screens 30 in. and larger will comprise over 55 percent of the LCD TV market by 2007, compared to under 70 percent in 2004.
Bruce Berkhoff, executive vice president of LG.Philips LCD Co. Inc. (Seoul, Korea), said the industry's move to HDTV will likely spark demand for LCD flat screens with 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, causing TV display glass usage to increase faster than that for other products.
The voracious appetite for LCD glass is prompting panel makers to accelerate the trend toward next-generation fabs capable of handling larger glass sizes, with suppliers focused on ramping up Generation 6 and 7 fabs and looking at Generation 8 and beyond. But keeping up with substrate size expansion is not easy for equipment makers such as AKT Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), which claims to supply at least 70 percent of dielectric films used in LCDs.
I.D. Kang, vice president of global business and service operations, said the proliferation of TV screen sizes—37, 40, 42, 46, 50, and 52 in.— has made it difficult for equipment makers to determine capabilities needed in display production equipment.
As substrate sizes grow, Kang said maintaining substrate temperature uniformity, deposition rates, and film quality would challenge equipment suppliers. Moreover, Kang cited figures showing that as glass sizes increased, so did investment in production equipment. He said standardization of glass sizes was needed to help achieve the cost reductions required to make large LCDs more economical.
One industry analyst, C.J. Muse of Lehman Brothers, said during a lunchtime presentation that while moving from Generation 5 to Generation 7 fibs is likely to achieve a 20 percent savings in production cost, achieving further incremental cost reductions would become more difficult as larger glass sizes worsened yields and display designs became more complex.
Muse added LCD panel makers would have to drastically cut profit margins to drive down panel costs in order to make the goal of a sub-$1,000 32-in. LCD module realizable by the end of 2005.
|
