Fujitsu, Hitachi Plan Second Plasma Display Panel Fab
By Yoshiko Hara, EE Times TOKYO - In an effort some call a last-gasp try for plasma display panel (PDP) technology, Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display Ltd. (FHP) will build a second PDP fab at its operations in Kyushu. The facility is intended to expand the venture's display-making capacity up to sevenfold by next autumn and bring the production of the displays to a new low cost point. ""TV applications will start to grow in 2001 when a digital TV infrastructure is widely available,"" said Yoshito Tsunoda, Senior Executive Vice President of FHP. Television manufacturers expect the advent of digital TV broadcasting in Japan will boost the sales of large-sized TVs. Japan begins preliminary digital broadcasting via satellite next autumn, and regular broadcasts will begin early in 2001. ""Recently our clients have become more and more serious about PDP TVs,"" said Tadatsugu Hirose, General Manager in charge of design at FHP, which supplies panels but does not manufacture TV sets. FHP intends to acquire enough capacity to satisfy the anticipated demand. ""If total PDP production in the industry stays around 10,000 units or so per month, how can TV manufacturers be motivated to develop PDP TVs? The second fab may be a gamble for us, but unless we achieve a breakthrough [in this current period of slow growth], the PDP market won't take off,"" said an FHP spokesman. FHP claimed to have about an 80 percent share in current PDP market. FHP has decided to invest $433 million to build the second fab, which will have an output capacity of 60,000 units (the equivalent of 42-inch panels) a month, or six times the current line's capacity of 10,000 units a month. Construction will begin in November and the fab will begin operation next October. FHP is a joint-venture manufacturing company established by Fujitsu Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. in April of this year. Fujitsu and Hitachi integrated their PDP operations, including three R&D bases, under FHP in July and FHP took over Fujitsu's Miyazaki PDP fab and its capacity of 10,000 units a month. ""The effect of joint operation is big because we had been working together long before FHP was established, and the purpose of collaboration is quite clear,"" said Tsunoda, Senior Executive Vice President of FHP, who joined FHP from Hitachi. The joint operation brought TV-related technology from Hitachi to FHP. ""TV application is the most appropriate implementation for plasma display technology,"" he said. PDP TVs have long been considered too expensive for consumer use. Current 50-inch high definition PDP TVs sell for about $13,500, and 40-inch standard definition (VGA) PDP TVs are at about $11,500. FHP projected that the price will drop to $144 per inch sometime in 2001 to 2002 and to $96 per inch in 2003. The industry has established the 10,000-yen-per-inch ($96 per inch) cost as a target. The lower price will help form a PDP market of about 3 million units in 2003, 2 million of which will be for TVs, according to a FHP projection. ""The PDP TV market will be between 3 million to 4 million in 2005,"" according to Hiroyuki Yoshida, Display Research Manager at IDC Japan Ltd. ""Unless PDP manufacturers establish a one-million-unit PDP market within three years, the future of PDP will be very gloomy."" Fujitsu invested 25 billion yen ($240 million) in the facility that is now FHP's first fab. ""To consuming 25 billion yen on only 10,000 units a month capacity does not pay off. With the 10,000-unit line, it is impossible to achieve the '10,000 yen per inch' target,"" said Hirose, the FHP general manager. Pursuing lower cost, FHP will improve the productivity of the second fab by more than three times. It will handle a larger substrate, from which at least two 42-inch panels can be cut. If smaller panels such as 30-inch models are in demand, the large substrate could contribute even more to a lower panel cost. This will be one of major factors to increase the productivity and lower the cost of one panel. Hitachi's production technology and Fujitsu's know-how from the current line will also be merged into the new fab to achieve the three-time productivity increase, FHP said. Source: EE Times