sharp lcd panel reviews factory

Impressive picture performance characterized by good clarity and vibrant, rich color - is how I would introduce this Sharp LCD offering. This Sharp LCD runs warm as one of its only picture negatives. The major setting that needs toggling to correct the reddish appearance of flesh tones is the Color adjustment, which should be set at around -10 to give the viewer a more realistic picture especially in flesh tones. All other picture settings are better left alone as they render little change in result.

The second drawback of the unit is a motion trailer effect, which is prevalent in most LCD TVs. This is caused by a signal response time which Sharp claims is 15 milliseconds compared with a plasma display which has a signal response time of 7 milliseconds. On almost all LCD TVs fast motion scenes can display some trailer effect and that is true of this unit as well.

Viewing angle is a strong point of Sharp LCD TVs compared to other manufactures as the company is constantly striving to improve its LCD panel performance. Sharp is the dominant player in LCD manufacturing and many companies OEM the panel for their LCD display offerings from Sharp. For this reason Sharp is the leader, along with possibly Samsung in quality development in the LCD world. The three areas of major concern are contrast - which on this 20" unit appears solid, viewing angle - which I measure at about 60 degrees before loss of picture quality, and signal response time - which is improving but still lagging such technologies as plasma.

Sharp 20" LCDs are competitive but never strive to be the cheapest - believing their product to be superior. This unit can be found in the $1200 range and is a good buy at the price in today"s market.

The path back to LCD leadership for Sharp begins at its just opened Sakai City manufacturing facility. Being a 10th generation facility means it can roll out more and bigger displays, producing six 60-inch LCDs from each glass substrate, 60% more than older 8g facilities. Check out the pics for a peek at where 72,000 substrates per month will be made, delivering those slim LED backlit televisions getting so much love, along with solar panels (also being installed on the roofs for that extra green vibe that"s in vogue these days) and a few of the more than 100,000 energy efficient LEDs lighting the factory itself. Whether your closest HDTV purchase is a turkey fueled memory from last weekend or yet to come, bargain hunters and AV fans alike can appreciate an eyeful of the robots and testing equipment slicing, dicing and stamping screens headed for shelves nearby, whether bearing an Aquos brand or any number of other nameplates.

The Panasonic TH-37PWD6UY is Panasonic"s sixth-generation professional plasma display unit. It replaces the 37PWD5UZ, and is, without question, Panasonic"s best 37-inch plasma monitor yet. Not only has Panasonic upped the stated contrast ratio on this unit to 4000:1, it has also doubled the TH-37PWD6UY"s gray scale from 1,024 (the industry standard) to 1,536. The TH-37PWD6UY plasma display also features a newly developed plasma panel structure, which utilizes wall-like ribs around each pixel element to boost total light emission.

The Sharp LC-37G4U 37-inch LCD TV is designed by Toshiyuki Kita, an internationally renowned product designer, and manufactured in Sharp"s brand-new, state-of-the-art LCD glass factory in Kameyama, Japan, which came online in January 2004. This LCD display features Sharp"s new Quick Shoot video circuit, which is said to achieve sub 16ms response times—among the fastest in the industry—and minimize motion lag in fast-moving scenes. The LC-37G4U also utilizes Sharp"s proprietary Advanced View/Black TFT Panel with anti-glare coating for increased brightness levels and viewing angles.

The Panasonic TH-37PWD6UY is the professional version of the TH-37PD25UP consumer model plasma television. As such, the TH-37PWD6UY does not come with a tuner or built-in speakers. The TH-37PD25UP does. Aside from some basic aesthetic differences, though, these plasma TV models are identical: They both have 37-inch screens, 856 x 480 resolutions, and identical pictures. The Panasonic TH-37PWD6UY (professional model) will be used in Picture evaluations. The TH-37PD25UP (consumer model) will be used for Other Considerations and Value judgments, as the Sharp LC-37G4U includes a tuner and speakers, too.

The Panasonic TH-37PWD6UY plasma TV is an excellent example of plasma"s ability to replicate extremely black blacks. One only has to look at the intense blackness of the letterboxing on this Panasonic plasma screen to recognize that much. The black levels on this Panasonic plasma display are stellar, as is its dark material detailing. One of the keys with dark material detailing is achieving a truly variegated gray scale, one that allows for minute distinctions among shades of gray. This Panasonic plasma display achieves just the right mix of truly deep blacks and subtle gradations of black (which are technically gradations of gray, only they don"t look that way on the screen). The TH-37PWD6UY plasma monitor employs fully 1,536 levels of gray, and this translates into extra-sharp, extra-detailed shadow detail, which is especially noticeable in a darker film like Veronica Guerin, one of the films we screened for this review.

Head to head, the plasma display fared better in the viewing angle department than did LCD monitor. One can just about watch good plasma display units sideways! The Panasonic TH-37PWD6UY plasma screen TV had astoundingly obtuse viewing angles, which I would estimate at 170°, maybe more.

As for the coloration on the 37G4U LCD monitor, we were generally pleased with it, despite the fact that the display"s white balance leans toward pink, lending warmth to flesh tones. Such tendencies bother some people. Fortunately, this Sharp LCD TV"s TINT function can be adjusted. With the TINT bumped up to 4 (on a scale from -30 [red] to 30 [green]) and the COLOR set at -2, the Sharp 37G4U was very acceptable in color performance.

The black levels on Sharp"s 37G4U LCD TV were surprisingly good for an LCD display, particularly one of this size. At 37 inches, this Sharp LCD display is fairly sizeable, certainly large enough to be the principal display in a home theater environment. The problem is, the larger LCDs get, the lighter their overall brightness levels and contrast ratios get. And so it is with the Sharp 37G4U LCD TV: Its brightness levels simply could not match up to those of a well-made plasma unit, though, in general, the Sharp"s black levels were above-average for an LCD. In fact, one might not notice any particular deficiency in the blacks unless you were watching the very same material side-by-side on a plasma display (which we were).

Sharp does a couple smart things to enhance the black levels on its 37G4U display. First, they include a first-rate anti-glare/darkness-enhancing coating on the LCD screen to counter excessive light emissions, which tend to dull blacks on the screen. Second, Sharp enables the user to adjust the intensity of the backlight powering his or her unit. Since LCD technology operates by blocking, rather than reflecting or emitting, light, the ability to manipulate the amount of light that has to be blocked in order to generate deep, rich blacks greatly enhances the prospects of obtaining decent-if-not-good black levels from this unit. We found that backing off the BACKLIGHT setting on the Sharp 37G4U LCD TV helped it to generate deeper blacks.

The Sharp 37G4U LCD TV, on the other hand, dimmed considerably when you got about 60° or 65° off its central viewing axis. While it is possible to see the picture on Sharp"s LCD monitor from the side, we found that, realistically, the LCD screen had a viewing angle of around 125° to 130°.

Given the Panasonic plasma"s performance in the scaling/processing department, we had our concerns about the Sharp when it came to displaying a non-native resolution like 480p at its native resolution of 720p. But all these misgivings were allayed as soon as we popped Veronica Guerin in our Sony DVD player. The opening scene, where the camera floats over Dublin"s port as a shipment of heroin comes in from sea, literally shone with detailing. This was also evident in the characters" faces throughout the movie. This suggests that the Sharp 37G4U has excellent scaling technology, because its 720p signal looked as good as Panasonic"s 480p signal.

As with the Panasonic plasma display, the Sharp LCD display did not show much in the way of false contouring, pixelation, or ghosting. We were especially pleased with the Sharp LCD TV"s handling our Ultimate DVD test disc and its torturous Rodeo Clown sequence. Even with the unpredictable bucks and head thrusts of a raging bull, the Sharp kept its cool, depicting no ghosting or pixelation that we could detect.

The only thing we noticed with respect to the Sharp"s handling of action scenes was an ever-so-slight fuzziness that appeared as the scenes changed repeatedly. This will hardly be distracting to the average viewer, though real video sticklers will notice this—and probably complain about it.

We were pleased with the 37G4U"s handling of 720p HD signals, which it readily upconverted to its native resolution of 768p. HDTV signals on the Sharp LCD TV looked stunning, deep and full of detail!

Even with a 1080i video signal, which had to be de-interlaced and re-scaled, the Sharp did not miss a beat. Likewise with its handling of computer signals via its DVI-I input: The 37G4U displayed XGA (1024 x 768) data signals with extraordinary clarity and sharpness. Both graphics- and data-intensive applications looked good on the screen, though the Sharp LCD"s real strength is its ability to display letters and numbers with perfect geometry and precision for long periods of time with no burn-in.

Picture-wise, these are both good performers. The Panasonic TH-37PWD6UY plasma display edged out the Sharp LCD display in three of the four major categories-color fidelity, brightness, and viewing angles-though not by much. To our eyes, Sharp"s LCD TV tied Panasonic"s plasma TV in the signal processing/scaling department. The Sharp LCD monitor had the edge with data signals. LCD technology has clearly come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, all the way to becoming a genuine rival to plasma technology, at least in the under-40-inch category.

Both the Panasonic plasma TV and the Sharp LCD TV ran quietly—almost silently—throughout our tests. We were hard-pressed to hear it from even a foot away, let alone from the six to eight feet of viewing distance recommended for 37-inch displays like these. Even Sharp"s set-top box ran whisper-quiet.

As for the dimensional component of the Plasma vs. LCD showdown, we"ll have to call it a toss-up as well. Both the Panasonic TH-37PD25UP plasma TV and the Sharp 37G4U LCD TV have depths of 3.9 inches with their speakers attached. Both had more than adequate audio systems of 16W and 20 W, respectively. Neither display is going to win any home-theater audio awards, but neither one is going to disappoint the casual viewer, provided he or she has realistic expectations for what a built-in, mock-surround-sound audio system can do.

But its picture will fade over time. The half-life on this well-made plasma TV is 30,000 hours, after which time the screen will be half as bright as it was out of the box. The decline in screen brightness will probably be imperceptible, since it occurs quite slowly over time. Burn-in, on the other hand, will be quite noticeable, if one fails to take some common-sense precautions against it. Although most of the big-name manufacturers have taken great steps to ward off burn-in in their plasma TVs, the possibility of burn-in occurring on a plasma screen persists. Which makes this plasma a less-than-stellar candidate as a working computer monitor. Reasonable care is more than enough to prevent burn-in in the first place, but there is nothing like immunity—especially if one intends to have his or her flat panel TV double as a computer monitor.

So, while the Panasonic plasma is a more-than-adequate television, it is probably a bit less versatile than the Sharp LCD is, which is one reason why the Sharp gets the nod here.

The Sharp 37G4U LCD TV matches up nicely with the Panasonic TH-37PD25UP plasma TV, input-wise. The Sharp has all rear-facing inputs, in similar quantities as the Panasonic: 2 component video inputs, 3 composite video inputs, a DVI input, an HDMI interface, 3 RCA-type audio inputs, and a PC audio input. The only difference between these two units is that the Panasonic plasma display has 3 S-video inputs, whereas the Sharp LCD monitor only has only one. (There is a corresponding disparity in audio inputs, two less on the Sharp LCD TV since it has two fewer S-video inputs.) All things considered, these flat panel displays tie one another in the connectivity department.

Where the Sharp LCD really outpaces the plasma, though, is in the screen integrity/longevity department. The single greatest distinction between plasma and LCD displays—besides picture quality and coloration—has to do with the imperviousness of LCD screens to burn-in and the renewability of their picture elements. The florescent bulb that powers the Sharp"s picture should realistically last about as long as the plasma TV"s half-life, 30,000 hours. The bulb may not burn out for a few thousand more hours, but its white balance will probably have changed enough and the bulb itself will probably have dimmed dramatically enough to merit replacement. Whereas one would have to replace an entire plasma TV in such instances, one only has to replace the bulb in the Sharp LCD. The Sharp LCD TV can be returned to "like-new" performance levels with a simple bulb change out, which Sharp"s Service Center assured us can be done by the user him- or herself. Thus, the Sharp Aquos line has a big advantage over Panasonic"s plasma line when it comes to performance over time.

A well-made plasma may have a slight edge, picture-wise, over a similarly well-made LCD display, but users can count on their LCD TVs to continue to perform, given a minimal investment (around $270 for a new lamp), indefinitely.

Between the Panasonic TH-37PD25UP plasma display and the Sharp 37G4U LCD display, the real value has to be the Panasonic unit. The prices of both these flat-panel TVs reflect the cost of tuners and speakers as included with the units. In this scenario, we had to give the Panasonic plasma the nod: For a street price of around $2600 for the Panasonic plasma TV, one saves about $1400 over the comparably equipped LCD TV (which has a street price around $4000). Simply put, the Panasonic TH-37PD25UP is an excellent value. The disparity in price has very little to do with the quality of the additional features, the tuner and speakers, when you consider the fact that the Panasonic plasma comes with a 16W sound system (versus a 20W sound system on the Sharp LCD, which, to our ears, sounded no better or worse than the 16W system on the Panasonic), and an integrated NTSC/ATSC tuner (versus a set-top box containing only an NTSC tuner with the Sharp). One simply gets more for his or her money, picture-wise, with plasma display technology, mostly because LCD glass screens still cost more to produce—especially in larger sizes—than plasma screens do.

Although the Sharp 37G4U LCD television is a good unit, its price seems a bit high for a 37-inch widescreen display, high definition or not. This really goes to show how expensive LCD screens can get when they approach HD-quality pixel counts, as this one does.

In a head-to-head competition, Panasonic"s TH-37PWD6UY and TH-37PD25UP plasma TVs bested their flat-panel display cousin, the Sharp 37G4U LCD TV. Plasma technology"s margin of victory has shrunk over time, except where price/value is concerned.

Sharp showcased its 108-inch LCD today at CES in Las Vegas. This HUGE display measures 52.9-inches high by 93.9-inches wide, and features a Black Advanced Super View Full-Spec HD LCD panel manufactured at Sharp’s Kameyama Plant No. 2, the first plant in the world to use 8th generation glass substrates. With this development, Sharp has demonstrated that it is possible to produce LCD TVs in sizes ranging from 13-inches to super-large sizes like the 108-inch, and that LCD is the predominant display device in the flat-panel television market, which is forecast to grow dramatically in the future.

Sharp is working to further the evolution of LCD TVs based on the success of developing the 108-inch model, and as the world’s leading manufacturer of LCD TVs, will continue to develop state-of-the-art products.

For more information on Sharp’s full line of Liquid Crystal Televisions, contact Sharp Electronics Corporation, Sharp Plaza, Mahwah, N.J. 07430, or call 800-BE-SHARP. For online product information, visit Sharp’s Web site at sharpusa.com.

Back in 2016, to determine if the TV panel lottery makes a significant difference, we bought three different sizes of the Samsung J6300 with panels from different manufacturers: a 50" (version DH02), a 55" (version TH01), and a 60" (version MS01). We then tested them with the same series of tests we use in all of our reviews to see if the differences were notable.

Our Samsung 50" J6300 is a DH02 version, which means the panel is made by AU Optronics. Our 55" has an original TH01 Samsung panel. The panel in our 60" was made by Sharp, and its version is MS01.

Upon testing, we found that each panel has a different contrast ratio. The 50" AUO (DH02) has the best contrast, at 4452:1, followed by the 60" Sharp (MS01) at 4015:1. The Samsung 55" panel had the lowest contrast of the three: 3707:1.

These results aren"t really surprising. All these LCD panels are VA panels, which usually means a contrast between 3000:1 and 5000:1. The Samsung panel was quite low in that range, leaving room for other panels to beat it.

The motion blur results are really interesting. The response time of the 55" TH01 Samsung panel is around double that of the Sharp and AUO panels. This is even consistent across all 12 transitions that we measured.

For our measurements, a difference in response time of 10 ms starts to be noticeable. All three are within this range, so the difference isn"t very noticeable to the naked eye, and the Samsung panel still performs better than most other TVs released around the same time.

We also got different input lag measurements on each panel. This has less to do with software, which is the same across each panel, and more to do with the different response times of the panels (as illustrated in the motion blur section). To measure input lag, we use the Leo Bodnar tool, which flashes a white square on the screen and measures the delay between the signal sent and the light sensor detecting white. Therefore, the tool"s input lag measurement includes the 0% to 100% response time of the pixel transition. If you look at the 0% to 100% transitions that we measured, you will see that the 55" takes about 10 ms longer to transition from black to white.

All three have bad viewing angles, as expected for VA panels. If you watch TV at an angle, most likely none of these TVs will satisfy you. The picture quality degrades at about 20 degrees from the side. The 60" Sharp panel is worse than the other ones though. In the video, you can see the right side degrading sooner than the other panels.

It"s unfortunate that manufacturers sometimes vary the source of their panels and that consumers don"t have a way of knowing which one they"re buying. Overall though, at least in the units we tested, the panel lottery isn"t something to worry about. While there are differences, the differences aren"t big and an original Samsung panel isn"t necessarily better than an outsourced one. It"s also fairly safe to say that the same can be said of other brands. All panels have minute variations, but most should perform within the margin of error for each model.

OSAKA -- Japanese electronics maker Sharp has been reaping big gains from its strengthened ties with U.S. tech giant Apple, the key client of its liquid-crystal display panels.

Sharp"s group net profit rose 290% to 53.2 billion yen ($487 million) in the 12 months to end-March, from a year ago. That growth is expected to continue, with the company forecasting a 43% expansion in net profit to 76 billion yen this fiscal year.

Sony said it would take a one-third stake in Sharp"s $3.5 billion LCD panel plant set for completion by March 2010, in an effort to meet fast-growing demand for flat televisions.

The move is the latest in a wave of alliances among Japanese flat TV makers as they try to secure enough panels while keeping initial investments in check to fight steep price declines.

Sharp, which offers Aquos LCD TVs, plans to turn the liquid crystal display factory, which would be the world"s largest, into a joint venture, with the Osaka-based company owning 66 percent and Sony taking the remainder.

Besides LCD panels, the joint venture will also produce LCD modules, which are display panels equipped with components such as a backlight unit and LCD driver chips.

The two Japanese companies plan to hold a joint news conference on Tuesday where Sony President Ryoji Chubachi and Sharp President Mikio Katayama will speak.

"For Sharp, this is a positive step since it means a major buyer that would keep the 10th-generation factory busy," Daiwa Institute of Research analyst Kazuharu Miura said.

Sharp"s new factory would use so-called 10th-generation glass substrates, which can yield more panels than earlier-generation, smaller glass substrates, improving production efficiency and helping both firms offer attractively priced flat TVs.

Global LCD TV sales are likely to more than double to 155 million units by 2012, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Association.

Sony, which aims to sell 10 million units of its Bravia LCD TVs in the current business year to March 31, runs another LCD joint venture, S-LCD, with Samsung.

The announcement follows Toshiba"s decision late last year to buy LCD panels from Sharp, while Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial said earlier this month it would spend $2.8 billion to build an LCD plant in the face of robust LCD TV demand and tight panel supplies.

"The problem will be 2010 and 2011. Just when TV demand is likely peaking, Sharp"s 10th-generation plant will come onstream, and so will Matsushita"s new factory," Shinko Securities analyst Hideki Watanabe said.

Shares in Sony closed up 1.2 percent at 5,200 yen, while Sharp was flat at 2,100 yen. The Tokyo stock market"s electrical machinery index IELEC.rose 0.3 percent.

Japan’s Sharp said Thursday it will team with a large Chinese manufacturer to build a factory in Nanjing and mass-produce LCD screens for TVs, computers and tablets.

Sharp said it will form a joint venture with China Electronics Corp. (CEC) to manage the project, and aims to begin production in June 2015. The plant will eventually handle 60,000 LCD panels per month, each measuring 2.2 x 2.5 meters, which can then be divided into smaller sizes for consumer products.

Although Sharp is struggling with massive losses and going through a major restructuring to rebuild its finances, the company is still one of the largest LCD display makers in the world and possesses cutting-edge technology. Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported that as part of the deal, Sharp will transfer its technology for producing IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) screens to the venture and will receive payment in the “tens of billions of yen” in return, part of which it will use to fund the new investment.

IGZO allows for higher resolutions and lower power drain than traditional LCD screens, and devices that use the technology are beginning to appear on the market. Sharp has launched smartphones and tablets with IGZO screens, and Samsung Electronics, Asustek Computer and Fujitsu are all releasing laptops that use the technology.

The new venture will be called Nanjing CEC-Panda LCD Technology and will be funded by a 17.5 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) investment, 92 percent from CEC Group and 8 percent from Sharp. It will be officially established in March of next year.

Sharp said the Chinese plant will allow production at lower costs than its current factories, and it will retain the right to buy the panels produced at the new facility.

Sharp has been aggressively pursuing deals with foreign partners to shore up its finances as it looks to recover from deep losses. Since last year it has signed deals with Samsung, Foxconn and Qualcomm for joint production and research.

As a result of a deal announced in August 2009, Sharp and CEC already operate a Chinese joint venture producing smaller LCD panels, to which Sharp transferred some of its older technology. They said at the time they would negotiate a deal to build larger panels in the future.

Sharp booked a ¥545 billion loss last fiscal year but forecasts it can rebound to a ¥5 billion profit during the current period. It said Thursday that the finances of the new deal are already factored into its current forecast.

In an old seaport city near its Osaka headquarters, Sharp Corp. is building a $9 billion factory complex the size of 32 baseball stadiums to make liquid-crystal-display panels and solar panels. The complex, which Sharp broke ground last November, will be the world"s largest LCD and next-generation solar panel plant when it is ready sometime in the next fiscal year, ending March 2010. It will house most of its major suppliers on the same premises. Sharp itself will invest about $4.3 billion.

While Apple Inc. is leading a trend in the electronics industry to outsource hardware manufacturing and focus on design and software, Sharp is making a huge bet that keeping manufacturing of LCD and solar panels in-house will give it a big competitive advantage.

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

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Sharp has reinforced its commitment to LCD screen technology with the announcement of plans for a massive plant to make the displays. The factory, due to come on-stream by March 2010, has a capacity of over a million screens a month.

At 2.85x3.05m. these are 60% larger than those currently used at Sharp"s Kameyama plant, and will each yield six 60in panels, eight 50in, or 15 40in screens. With planned production using 72,000 of these substrates per month, that could mean up to 432,000 60in screens, or over a million in the 40in class.

This should give Sharp appreciable economies of scale, enabling it it make screens much more efficiently in what is a highly competitive market with constant downward pressure on prices.

The plant will also make thin-film solar energy panels, further boosting the company"s position as the world"s largest manufacturer, at least in volume terms, of such products. The plan is for an annual production of cells capable of producing around 1,000 megawatts.

Having swiftly approved Samsung’s and LG’s requests to build cutting-edge LCD manufacturing plants in China last year, the Chinese government is having some reservations about giving the go-ahead to a similar application from Sharp Corporation, the Japanese national newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun has reported. This is due to the Osaka-headquartered TV maker’s reluctance to disclose sensitive details on its latest technologies to Chinese organisations, for fear of intellectual property (IP) theft and the effect on the output of its own Sakai factory.

Sharp had initially intended to construct an eight-generation (G8) LCD panel factory in Nanjing, but Yomiuri‘s sources have revealed that Beijing is applying pressure on the Japanese HDTV manufacturer to deploy its tenth-generation (G10) LCD display technology instead in China. With each progressive generation of LCD manufacturing plant, larger sheets of “mother glass” (from which a number of panels are cut) can be handled, therefore boosting production efficiency. Eight 46-inch LCD TV panels can be made from a G8 mother glass, whereas a G10 sheet – boasting a total surface area of 8.7m2 – can be divided into eight 60-inch panels.

Currently, Sharp’s G10 LCD TV panels are produced in the conglomerate’s Sakai plant in the Osaka Prefacture, which is primed for the export of large-sized LCD television panels. However, with Sony seeking to procure cheaper LCD TV panels from Taiwanese manufacturers rather than investing more capital into the Sakai plant as originally agreed, Sharp is worried that the opening of a second Gen 10 plant will lead to an unwanted scenario of excessive manufacturing capacity unless the output from the Sakai factory is scaled down (which in itself is inefficient too).

Sharp’s request to set up a G8 LCD panel factory in Nanjing was submitted as a joint venture with a Chinese electronics firm. The Japanese corporation is also concerned that if it upgrades the Nanjing LCD-making facility to G10 as demanded by the Chinese government, there is a possibility its most advanced technological blueprints may be compromised by data leakage.

From time-to-time, we"ve passed along some news on Apple"s long-time LCD supplier Japan Display. The company had the misfortune of sinking a lot of money into new factories just as Apple was making the move to OLED panels for the iPhone. Apple has helped prop up the company this year by investing a reported $100 million into a restructuring of the company and moving some of its LCD production from China to Japan Display"s facilities. Japan Display has lost money for 11 straight quarters, and while it was late to start producing OLED panels, it now produces the AMOLED screens employed by the Apple Watch Series 5. Apple contributes 60% of Japan Display"s annual revenue.

The Nikkei Business Daily reports today that Japan Display is talking to Apple and Sharp about selling its main smartphone display factory for as much as $820 million. Sharp is a unit of Foxconn, a contract manufacturer responsible for assembling the majority of iPhone units sold globally. Sharp also sells displays to Apple and said that it was talking to Japan Display about purchasing the factory after an unnamed client requested that it do so. In a statement it released, Sharp said, "We are carefully considering it, reviewing the impact that any purchase would have on our earnings, and whether and how much risk it would entail." Besides Foxconn, the report suggests that Wistron could be included in the purchase of the factory. Wistron is another company used by Apple to manufacture its products including the iPhone.

The factory, located in Hakusan City, Ishikawa prefecture in western Japan, cost $1.5 billion to build back in 2015, and Apple fronted that money to Japan Display. As part of the deal with the display manufacturer, Apple was to be reimbursed by taking a cut of each LCD panel display sold. But with smartphone manufacturers turning to AMOLED, the plant was running at only 50% capacity. As a result, Japan Display still owes Apple more than $800 million.

Another report says that Sharp will actually purchase the LCD production facilities by next March and will reach a separate agreement with Apple after the deal is closed. The factory has been shut since this past July. Japan Display released a statement today saying that it is looking at all options but isn"t sure what it will do about the factory. The company adds that nothing has been decided and when it does make a decision, it will notify the press. Earlier this month, the company said that it was looking to receive $200 million from a customer, believed to be Apple, for equipment from the plant. But now it appears that Japan Display is taking a different path.

Last year, the panel manufacturer lost $2.3 billion following a $260 million loss in 2017. The firm is one of three companies supplying Apple with the Liquid Retina Display for the iPhone 11 along with LG Display and Sharp. According to reliable TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple could release four new models next year. Forgetting the difference between 4G and 5G models, only one of the four will use an LCD display and that is expected to be the 4.7-inch iPhone9.