Osaka, Japan and Hamburg, Germany: Sharp has started operations at its new LCD panel plant, which is the first facility in the world to adopt tenth-generation (G10) glass substrates. Using Sharp’s UV2A*2 photo alignment technology, the plant can produce high-contrast, energy-efficient panels of 40 inches and larger.
“At the new manufacturing complex the unique concentration of specialists, know-how, and leading-edge production facilities in one place will enable us to take vertically integrated production to a new level. Apart from significant time and cost benefits, this bears an enormous potential for innovation since significant improvements of LCD technology affects the whole process chain. The outcome is, for example, our new state-of-the-art LCD TVs,” said Maximilian Huber, president of Sharp Microelectronics Europe.
The new complex has roofs equipped with solar panels and will use approximately 100,000 LEDs for both indoor and outdoor lighting. Production capacity is expected to be 72,000 substrates per month.