Samsung Expands LCD Manufacturing

Samsung Electronics will start commercial production on a new LCD line in April next year that should mean lower prices for flat-panel displays, the company said Monday.

LCD prices have stabilized after dropping consistently for some months, and industry-watchers have wondered whether it's time for another price cut, especially for large screens.

How it Works

The new factory is situated in Tangjung, South Korea, alongside a similar factory that began operating in April this year that is owned by S-LCD, a joint venture company of Samsung and Sony. Like the S-LCD line, the new factory will produce 40-inch and 46-inch LCD panels for television sets, said Cho Sung-In, a spokesperson for Samsung in Seoul.

LCD panels are made on sheets of glass called mother glass. Typically several panels are fabricated together on a large sheet, which is then cut up. This is necessary because it is costly to handle each piece of glass, so making several panels together cuts the per-panel cost. Similarly, using larger sheets of glass to begin with also helps reduce the per-panel cost. The new production line is a so-called 7th generation line and accepts glass that measures 74.8 by 88 inches, the largest size of glass yet employed by Samsung in commercial production.

From a single seventh-generation mother-glass sheet, eight 40-inch panels or six 46-inch panels can be produced, said Samsung.

Factory Capacities

When commercial production begins in April the factory will be capable of processing up to 45,000 sheets of mother glass per month. This will rise to 90,000 sheets per month when phase two of the facility comes online in the second half of 2006, Samsung said. In comparison the S-LCD factory has a capacity of 60,000 sheets per month. The S-LCD line reached full capacity for the first time in October, said Cho.

Samsung has invested $2.3 billion in phase one production on its new line and will invest a further $1.7 billion in bringing phase two on stream, according to the company. Test production at the new factory was recently completed, Samsung representatives said.