Sharp Japan Visit

By Gary Reber, Editor-In-Chief

November 15, 2006

Front And Center On a press trip to Japan in early October, Sharp Corporation officials extended us a warm welcome with impeccable Japanese hospitality. During the trip, which included visits to Tokyo, Chiba City (for CEATEC), Osaka, Mile Prefecture, and Kyoto, I was treated to insights into exclusive Sharp pioneered-and-developed LCD technology while touring the new Kameyama plant, which is Sharp's “eighth-generation” factory dedicated to larger LCD screen sizes including 42-, 46-, and 52-inch panels. I was shown how each 2160- x 2400-mm glass substrate can yield eight 46-inch panels or six 52-inch panels. The plant currently produces 500 sheets of mother glass per day, with plans to increase to 1,000 in March 2007, and 3,000 panels per day by Fall 2007. The Kameyama plant is a model for Japan's increasing dedication to green design and employs Sharp Solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation and a fuel-cell system said to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by as much as 40 percent over conventional manufacturing facilities. The plant's advanced power system is said to produce a third of all the electrical power used by the plant. In addition, 100 percent of the wastewater is recycled for use by the plant. Liquid Crystal And LC-Display (LCD) In Austria in 1888, a synthesized opaque viscous liquid material was first formulated. In 1889, a German scientist named the discovered birefringence characteristic of crystal “Liquid Crystal.” It wasn't until 1963 that further work resulted in the release of a paper by RCA on LC's electro-optical reaction, and in 1868 the development by RCA of the first LCD prototype. Sharp was the first company to mass produce an LCD mounted on a mini-calculator. This first-in-the-world LCD product was introduced in 1973. In 1992, Sharp introduced the first 17-inch TFT LCD-TV, followed by the AQUOS Color LC-TVs in 2001. In 2004, Sharp showed the then “world's largest” 65-inch color TFT LCD-TV, with mass-production of this display commencing in 2005. The technology-advanced Kameyama plant No. 2 operation went online in August 2006. One of the proud achievements, first announced by Sharp's president in 1998 as a 2005 goal for Japan, was the complete changeover from CRT TVs to LCD TVs. This goal was actually achieved around the end of 2004. Lineup For The U.S. Market Sharp executives presented the four grades of LCD displays. The standard AQUOS display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 in 37- and 45-inch sizes is now available in the U.S. A new 42-inch is expected to appear in late 2006 or early 2007. The high-grade AQUOS panel in 37-, 57-, and 65-inch panel versions also are available now with new 42-, 46-, and 52-inch full HD (1080p, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast, 2,000:1 native contrast—both touted as the industry’s highest) panels coming in late 2006 or early 2007. The so-called premium and pro (Mega Contrast) AQUOS displays with 42-inch panels produced at Kameyama are slated for introduction in the U.S. in 2007. The pro panel is claimed to exhibit a 1,000,000 native contrast! The high-grade AQUOS panel series feature Sharp's fine motion technology, 4ms high response time (also is claimed to be the industry's fastest), four-wavelength backlight (adding crimson red to blue, green, and red), 10-bit smooth color processing, 176-degree wide viewing angle, and 1080p-compatible HDMI. During my visit I got to access the performance of the premium and pro series LCD displays set up by Sharp technicians. No doubt, the performance was stunning. The 37-inch “Mega-Contrast” Advanced Super Video Premium LCD is claimed to deliver an unprecedented contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1, the widest dynamic range in the industry. Sharp intends to market the pro series as master monitors in television broadcast studios and motion picture production houses, where the CRT-based monitor is the standard in a dark-room environment. Sharp executives also said that the premium and the pro series will be marketed to the CEDIA channel, thus affording serious home theatre enthusiasts to acquire them. I can support the transition to digital format displays as long as they can match or exceed the performance of reference CRT monitors and projectors in a darkened or black room. I will not support the adoption of lesser display technologies just because the new digital display technologies are becoming increasingly accepted as the primary TV set in home living rooms. Fortunately, digital displays will equal or exceed the brightness, sharpness, color accuracy, gray scale tracking or color temperature accuracy, overall uniformity, usability, and reliability of even the best reference CRT projectors of the past. But the one area in which digital displays still need improvement is in providing fully convincing black levels and shadow detail in the darkest scenes, which are prevalent in most action, science fiction, thriller, mystery, and adventure movies. It is this dynamic range with full black reproduction that has been the hallmark of CRT performance. The introduction of Sharp's mega contrast pro series LCD monitors promises to deliver an image that can rival CRT performance, while at the same time offer high contrast ratios in bright living room conditions. The Sharp demonstration was impressive because it didn't limit the images viewed to the dark area in an otherwise bright picture, but actually showed moving images of very dark scenes that lack bright highlights. The blacks were inky black and exhibited impressive image depth. And more impressive was that the screen area disappeared into the black frame border around it in those scenes. I hope that Sharp will deliver video nirvana with their mega-contrast technology. We home theatre enthusiasts, who still prefer to experience movies in a darkened, if not totally black, room, as with the very best cinemas, will be truly appreciative. Sharp Expansion In a frank presentation and conversation during the visit to headquarters, Sharp executives noted that the company's brand position in the U.S. is “rather low” relative to where the company should be. That, they said, is about to change, with Sharp aggressively challenging Sony, Samsung, and LG/Philips in LCD as well as Panasonic in plasma displays, for worldwide market lead. Acknowledging that the company had made mistakes in projections for panel demand for the end of 2005, the brand slipped from number one in the worldwide market. With the new eighth-generation Kameyama plant online, the competition will be left behind according to Sharp officials. “That means we'll be able to sleep well for one year,” said Naoki Katoh, Division General Manager, A/V Systems Group. Leading the industry with eighth-generation manufacturing, Sharp said that pricing for the new 42-, 46-, and 52-inch 1080p displays would be aggressive in the U.S. with 1080p displays priced at $2,499, $3,499, and $4,799, respectively. Integrated production efficiencies are credit for Sharp's ability to price so aggressively. While the panels are manufactured in the Kameyama plant, U.S.-destined panels are transported to Mexico for assembly.

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