August 1, 2007 -- Sharp Corp. on Tuesday unveiled plans to construct the world's largest LCD panel production hub, which will be capable of churning out 72,000 large substrates a month during peak operation. The manufacturing complex in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, will be built on vacant land adjacent to Nippon Steel Corp.'s Sakai works. At 127 hectares, the property, which the manufacturing giant will purchase from Nippon Steel, is nearly four times the size of its key Kameyama facility in Mie Prefecture.
Sharp will take such steps as leasing land to encourage parts makers as well as electricity firms and other infrastructure providers to set up shop at the industrial park. Already, glassmaker Corning Inc. of the U.S., color filter producer Dai Nippon Printing Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. have decided to establish facilities at the complex. Production costs will be lower because the parts makers will share power and industrial water supplies.
Sharp will spend roughly 380 billion yen (US$3.21 billion) just on its LCD panel plant at the site. Including spending by parts producers and infrastructure costs, investments "will reach 1 trillion yen," said Sharp President Mikio Katayama. Last year, Sharp held just 11.5 per cent of the global LCD television market. Once the new factory comes onstream sometime in fiscal 2009, it aims to bump this figure to 20 per cent.
The company will also construct a solar cell plant, which will have an annual production capacity of 1,000mw and will come online by March 2010. Although the total investment has yet to be decided, it is pegged at around 100 billion yen. Expected to be the largest of its type in the world, the facility will likely overtake Sharp's mainstay solar cell plant in Katsuragi, Nara Prefecture, which is capable of turning out 710mw a year. Overall production costs at the LCD manufacturing complex can be trimmed because the solar cells use the same glass parts as LCD panels and the production process can use the same industrial gas.
Source: Asia Pulse
Source: Factiva
