"20mm, 1/2 Power Use, 100,000:1 Contrast Ratio LCD TV Will Debut in 2008," Sharp Says

Jan 11, 2008 12:11 Shinya Saeki, Nikkei Electronics

Sharp Corp held its annual New Year press conference in Tokyo Jan 8, 2008. Mikio Katayama, the company's president, said that the company aims to sell at least 10 million units of LCD TVs with a sales target of one trillion yen in 2008.

However, he said, "an increase in unit sales does not improve the brand value of Sharp. We want to improve it by bringing LCD TVs with high added-values to the market," showing an attitude of not caring the unit sales too much.

Katayama also implied that the sales target in fiscal year 2007, nine million units, is on course, saying, "So far, the numbers are good."

As a new technology to increase the added-values, Sharp announced a prototype of 65-inch LCD TV whose thinnest part is 20mm. The company announced a prototype of 52-inch LCD TV whose thinnest part is 20mm in Aug 2007 (See related article). So, it enlarged the screen size this time. Sharp will launch a product developed by this technology within 2008, Katayama said.

"(The new product) will be a next-generation display whose power consumption is about 50% lower than that of the existing one and contrast ratio is 100,000:1, in addition to the 20mm thickness," he said. But he did not explain the details such as its specifications and release date.

As for the large-size LCD panel business, Sharp will increase the production in the Second Kameyama Plant in July 2008, which was originally scheduled for the end of 2008, Katayama said. The monthly production of glass substrates will be 90,000 sheets, a 50% increase from the current production of 60,000.

"(By this production increase,) it will become possible to sell glass substrates to other companies in earnest," he said.

Sharp aims at more than 10-fold production capacity for thin-film solar cells

In the press conference, Sharp also explained its solar cell business. It plans to increase the production capacity of thin-film solar cells to 160MW per year in Oct 2008. At present, the capacity is 15MW per year.

The amount of Si used for thin-film solar cells is about 1% of the amount used for crystalline Si solar cells, and their cell geometry is simple. Therefore, if the company produces more thin-film solar cells, it will reduce costs, the company said.

Sharp, by taking advantage of these merits, aims to reduce the power generation cost to ¥23/kWh (US$0.21), about half of the current electricity price for households in Japan, in 2010.

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