Agilent

Introduced a color management system that provides backlight to LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) TVs and combines the functions of a color management controller IC and a color sensor module. The system enables LCD TVs to render colors 25% more brilliant than the existing backlighting. The solution is targeted for mobile handheld devices.

Chi Ling

Completed the development of backlight modules for 32" LCD TVs, and is anticipated to start volume shipping in the third quarter of 2005, in compliance with the panel shipments of CMO, its parent company.

Koditech

Created a light source for OLED panels that will prolong the lifespan and lower power consumption. OLED panels using the maker's new technology can reach a resolution of 3000 cd/m, a life span of 10,000 hours, and 15lm/W efficiency.

Nikkiso

Has successfully developed a backlight for LCD panels that cuts power consumption by around 50%. This is made possible through attaching 20-nanometer carbon nanotubes to the back of the panels. The technology may be commercialized in LCD TVs starting in 2006.

Radiant

The maker's new plant in Nanjing is slated to begin mass production in March 2005, with a monthly output of 500,000 large backlight modules and 100,000 small and medium ones. Radiant targets at seven million notebook PC backlight module shipments in 2005, while the shipment goal for monitors and TVs stand at ten million units and one million units respectively.

Color Filter

AMTC

Plans for a sixth-generation CF (Color Filter) plant have been scratched, in exchange for the establishment plans for a fifth-generation one. Equipment set-up at the fifth-generation CF plant is slated for February 2006, while mass production is expected to begin by July of the same year. Monthly capacity of the new facility is initially set at 70,000 units.

CPT

Pilot run at the maker's sixth-generation CF plant is slated for October 2005, targeting for a 30,000 monthly capacity by the second quarter of 2006, and a full capacity of 40,000 units by the third quarter same year. The plant will concentrate on the production of 26", 32", and 37" CFs. Although CPT will be making sixth-generation CFs in-house, it will continue to procure a fixed portion from other CF makers.

Hannstar

Half of its sixth generation CFs will be produced in-house.

Marubeni

Plans to step into the production of CFs.

NEC

Invested one billion yen (US$9.6 million; US$1=103.9 yen) to add color filter production lines at its facilities in Kogoshima Japan. The lines, which make color filters for second-generation LCD panels, launched into production in January 2005, and currently have a monthly output of 15,000 units. Plans are to run these production lines so that they will cater to 20% of the maker's demand for color filters.

Sumitomo

Plans to invest 10 billion yen (US$96.2 million) in 2005 to beef up production of components for LCD panels. The chemical maker will spend five billion yen (US$48.1 million) to build a color filter plant in Taiwan by September 2005; the plant, with a 50,000 unit monthly output, will manufacture color filters used in devices such as mobile handsets, DSCs (Digital Still Cameras), and automotive navigation systems. Another 4.5 billion yen (US$43.3 million) will be allocated to the maker's production complex in Ehime Japan, where a research center for polarizers, a coating plant for polarizers, and a quality control center will be established. Yet another 500 billion yen (US$4.8 billion) has been set apart for the construction of a research facility in Korea by April, to be dedicated to the development of new materials for higher-end LCD panels.

To lay down five billion yen (US$48.1 million) for the establishment of a 2.5-generation CF plant with Taiwanese PVI. The maker aims at a 50,000 unit monthly capacity at the plant, hoping to complete construction of the facility by the third quarter and begin production in the fourth quarter of 2005.  

TRADIM

Was successful in developing the roll-to-roll method for CF production. The Japanese research body has been able to produce a 4" x 2" prototype CF on a 20m x 30cm CF substrate. The technology is said to be able to cut production costs by 50%. Samples will be sent out to LCD panel makers in May or June 2005, aiming first at the small and medium mobile device applications.

Glass Substrate

Asahi

To invest 100 billion yen (US$962.5 million) in the next three years into increasing the equipment for making LCD substrates, an amount ample for four to five new furnaces.

Plans to kick off production at Taiwanese and Japanese furnaces in 2005. The maker's second furnace in Taiwan is slated to begin production in April, while the maker's fifth Japan-based furnace in Hyogo will start operation in October. An additional two to three furnaces will be set up should demand arise.

Shipments of its seventh-generation substrates will begin in 2006; designs of these next-generation substrates are capable of meeting the requirements of LPL and Samsung's seventh-generation lines. The maker also hopes to produce eighth-generation substrates on its existing lines in the future.

Corning

Decided to earmark US$1 billion for its super-thin glass substrate business for PCs and flat-panel TVs.

Signed a four-year contract with panel maker AUO, pledging a stable supply of new-generation glass substrates.

LPL

Has officially signed a contract with Japanese NEG to jointly establish a polishing and processing facility in Paju South Korea for TFT (Thin Film Trasistor) LCD glass substrates. Total investments into the joint-venture, dubbed Paju Electric Glass, stand at US$36 million, with LPL and NEG respectively holding 40% and 60% of the company's share. Construction at the new plant will possibly begin in the second quarter of 2005.

NEG

Drafting plans to bump up its glass substrate capacity by 40% to 1.4 million square meters per month by August 2005. The maker will put in 20 billion yen (US$192.5 million) for the construction of a furnace capable of producing two-meter wide glass substrates at its plant in Shiga Japan. In South Korea, another three billion yen (US$28.9 million) will be allocated to add a third line at an existing plant. The new line is expected to render a boost in the plant's monthly capacity, from 350,000 square meters to between 550,000 and 600,000 square meters. NEG also plans to invest around six billion yen (US$57.7 million) in its Taiwanese facilities, adding one more production line in April to make three by the fall of 2005. Monthly capacity at its Taiwanese operations will reach 600,000 square meters, up from the present 150,000 to 160,000 square meters.

NHTS

NH Techno Glass will begin making the production equipment for the seventh-generation LCD panel glass substrates in January 2006. The maker's focuses at this new plant will be on glass furnaces and processing equipment.

OLED

Avecia

The maker announced that it will sell its OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) material and polymer electronics R&D business to the German-based Merck KGaA, for 50 million Euros (US$62.5 million) in cash. The transaction is expected to see completion in the first quarter of 2005.

Novaled

Developed a green-emitting OLED that broke the world's record with an efficiency of 110 lm/W.

Chips

Epson

Successfully developed a display controller chip that supports OLED panels with 260,000 colors, and provides fast response speed. The chip is targeted mainly at the automotive display sector.

MagnaChip

The Korean-based chipmaker has agreed to acquire Japanese ISRON, as a means to fortify its small and medium size LCD driver IC business, especially in the mobile handset sector.

NEC

Introduced a panel size scan driver IC for medium and large size panels, which will substantially reduce production costs and module volume. The driver IC is integrated first on a separate glass substrate, then attached to the LCD panel substrate. No date has been set for commercialization as of now.

Oki Electric

To acquire TI Japan's LCD driver chip operations along with its technicians, clients, and patents related to the LCD semiconductors. The transaction is expected to take place in mid-March. Cost of the acquisition is not revealed, but is said to be around five billion yen (US$4.8 million).

Other

ACE Digitech

To begin mass-producing large size TFT LCD polarizers in March, marking its shift from STN-LCD (SuperTwist Nematic) polarizers to that of TFT LCD. Other plans are being drafted to produce polarizers for PDPs (Plasma Display Panel) and OLED displays.

Adtech

The plasma power source maker collaborated with Hiroshima University in developing a new device that helps reduce the number of minute particles generated during the production of thin films used in LCD panels by 90%. Marketing of the equipment to LCD panel makers is pledged to happen soon.

Dongwoo

Korean Dongwoo Fine-Chem has completed its second polarizer plant, whereas mass production at the plant is scheduled for April 2005 at the earliest. The plant's monthly capacity stands at around eight million square meters, roughly twice that of its first plant.

Fuji Photo

To set up a total of three WV (Wide View) film plants in Japan with 27 billion yen (US$259.9 million).  Two of the three new plants will be located in Shizuoka and Kanagawa Prefecture, scheduled to be kicked off in August of 2005. Whereas the third plant will be established in Shizuoka, encompassing the complete production process of these high-performance films, and is slated to begin operation in June of 2006. The maker's annual capacity for these films, which can help expand the viewing angle of LCD TVs, will come to 90 million square meters after the addition of the new facilities, up from the current 50,000 million square meters.

The company will also build two TAC (Triacetyl Cellulose) production lines at its Kumamoto site at a cost of 40 billion yen (US$385 million). Each of the lines, when operational, respectively in December 2005 and April 2007, will boost the maker's TAC film output by 50 million square meters per month, compared to the present 180 million square meters. The move is the first phase of a five-year scheme announced earlier to set up a TAC film production site in Kumamoto.

Fuji Photo will also speed up the production schedule at its TAC plant in Shizuoka Japan by three months, kicking it off in September of 2005. The maker's fourth TAC plant under subsidiary Fujifilm Opto Materials will come on-line as planned in December 2005.

Marubeni

To buy 10% a stake in BOE Hydis at the cost of 1,600 RMB (US$192.8; US$1=8.3 RMB), and plans to invest into the maker's second TFT LCD panel production line, while supplying the raw materials the panel maker will need to manufacture the TFT LCD panels.