DailyTech - LG.Philips LCD "Officially" Launches 7G Fab

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Hardware LG.Philips LCD "Officially" Launches 7G Fab
Kristopher Kubicki (Blog) - April 27, 2006 7:00 AM

12 comment(s) - last by jkresh.. on Apr 27 at 4:55 PM

The LPL P7 facility in P7 marks one of the most expensive substrate facility ever built

42" and 47" LCD

LG.Philips has just announced that its 7th generation LCD production facility has just officially opened in Paju, South Korea. The facility, which took a little more than $5.5B USD to complete, features a 345kV substation and lodging for the 4,000 employees that work and live at the facility. The facility began its first production substrate the first of this year, but industry analysts tell DailyTech the few thousand panels produced so far never made it into the mainstream market and have only been for evaluation.

LG.Philips claims the plant is currently capable of producing 16,000 panel sheets per month and will reach 45,000 panels per month by the end of June. The year end estimate is somewhere near 90,000 panel sheets per month. The plant is specifically devoted to producing 42" and 47" LCD TV panels right now, but has the option to produce 19" and 20" LCD monitors as well.

LG.Philips LCD and Samsung LCD recently got into a bit of a format war over mid-40" panel sizes. Samsung LCD was intending to produce 46" LCD panels, but it appears that LG.Philips LCD has convinced the majority of the panel market to adopt its 47" panel size instead. To no surprise, LG.Philips LCD is the first company to have mass production 47" LCD TV panels, and they are pumping them out of the P7 facility.

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Prices coming down?

By Hulk on 4/27/2006 8:32:16 AM , Rating: 2

Hopefully this new capacity will mean prices will come down on these large panel TV's.

RE: Prices coming down?

By SunAngel on 4/27/06, Rating: 0

RE: Prices coming down?

By bunnyfubbles on 4/27/2006 9:59:07 AM , Rating: 2

With LCDs becoming more mainstream right around the time when newer and potentially trendier technologies such as OLED and SED come into play, I'd say one way for LCD to better compete would be to add lower pricing to its resume. “Perfected” technology just doesn’t cut it if newer technologies can boast clearly superior specs.

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RE: Prices coming down?

By Mudvillager on 4/27/2006 11:21:10 AM , Rating: 2

well my guess is it'll at least two more years before you can get an oled flat screen tv at an affordable price, let alone buy one at all.

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RE: Prices coming down?

By blackmetalegg on 4/27/2006 1:29:47 PM , Rating: 2

I'm not sure what resolution these 42" or 47" panels have (720p or capable of 1080p), but currently a Sony 40" LCD flat panel costs ~3000 CAD, which is not that expensive. A good 42" plasma goes for ~2500-2800 CAD, so this isn't that bad. Granted it only does 720p but then AFAIK there is no LCD that support 1080p just yet, in any size. Plasma does it but those thing are so power hungry...

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RE: Prices coming down?

By jkresh on 4/27/2006 4:55:16 PM , Rating: 2

Westinghouse has had 37inch 1080p screens for more then 1 year, sharp has had 45 and 60inch 1080p lcds for quite some time as well. There are plenty of other manufacters that also support 1080p (though not all of them can actualy take a 1080p input, they take 1080i in and upscale to their native 1080p).

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RE: Prices coming down?

By josmala on 4/27/2006 11:39:35 AM , Rating: 2

42" & 47" panels.. The 90 000 per month means 1Million per year.
The facility costs 5.5Billion

I don't think that those panels are cheap. As the capacity alone costed them 5500$ per panel/year. And that doesn't include actual operating costs of the facility, nor interest. So it takes several years before this facility is paid...

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RE: Prices coming down?

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 4/27/2006 1:50:13 PM , Rating: 2

Multiply by 8. They can cut a sheet into 8 47" panels at a time.

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Loyal employees?

By Cullinaire on 4/27/2006 2:19:17 PM , Rating: 2

I wonder what % of the 4000 people living at the facility have LCD TVs.

RE: Loyal employees?

By Eris23007 on 4/27/2006 2:56:14 PM , Rating: 2

Yes, those poor people so oppressed by the evil bastards who gave them jobs, a place to live, food, water, etc. Greedy corporate pigs.

/sarcasm

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RE: Loyal employees?

By KristopherKubicki

(blog) on 4/27/2006 3:31:09 PM , Rating: 2

The facilities in SK are not anywhere near what the facilities in China and Taiwan are like. This is a multi-billion dollar facility, and the employees are highly educated. They make a lot of money working at Paju

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Sharp Aquos

By Ryan Norton on 4/27/2006 12:28:42 PM , Rating: 2

Is Sharp and its Aquos brand just a downstream assembler of LCD TVs or do they produce their own TFT panels? I've been really happy with the 37" Aquos LCD I got last Xmastime, but if its price falls through the floor or suddenly you can get "true" 1080p for the same price I'm just gonna have to plug my ears and cover my eyes...