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LG Electronics has beaten its own record for the largest prototype PDP (Plasma Display Panel) yet produced with the development of a panel that is 76 inches in diagonal width. The panel is a jump on the company's 71-inch panel announced in July this year and a 70-inch panel developed by rivals Samsung Electronics that was announced in May.

The 76-inch panel was unveiled by the company at the Korea Electronics Show, which took place in Seoul, South Korea, last week. It has a resolution of 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels, according to a company statement. That resolution makes it suitable for widescreen high-definition television and matches the resolution of the LG and Samsung panels mentioned above.

The company released no information about when the prototype might become a commercial product.

Plasma Plans

LG is making aggressive moves in the PDP market and has stated it plans to capture a 25 percent share of the world market and become the world's largest manufacturer of PDPs in terms of market share by 2005.

To this aim the company recently opened its second production line and has announced plans for a third line. Both the new lines are and will be situated alongside the company's first line at its factory in Gumi, in central South Korea.

The second production line, which was inaugurated on September 24, has a capacity of 35,000 panels per month and more than doubles maximum capacity at the factory to 65,000 panels per month. LG invested $118 million to construct the line, according to a statement from the company.

The third line, which was announced in July, is scheduled for operation in September 2004 and represents an investment of almost $300 million, LG said. The new line will have a capacity of 75,000 panels per month and take maximum capacity at the plant to 140,000 per month, or almost 1.7 million panels per year.