Samsung said it will produce 16-inch full high definition (FHD) panels for notebooks in the third quarter, but the battle in the FHD notebook panel market will heat in 2009..

FHD applications are growing fast. According to research firms' estimates, 17% of the total LCD TV shipments for the fourth quarter of 2007 were FHD models. In the 40-inch-and-above segment, 57% of the LCD TVs shipped in the quarter were FHD models.

The FHD trend is also spreading to notebooks. Samsung originally planned to launch the world's first 16-inch FHD panels in the first quarter of 2008, but issues with verification by system makers and specification changes caused the company to delay volume production to the third quarter, the sources said.

As some notebook vendors already have plans to launch 16-inch FHD notebooks in the first half of the year, Samsung will ship some 16-inch FHD panels to these vendors, including Acer and Hewlett-Packard (HP), before the Korean maker formally starts volume production for the segment, the sources said, adding Samsung is expected to ship 16-inch FHD panels to Acer in April.

Samsung can produce its 16-inch FHD panels, which have a 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1920×1080, at its 5G line, with each substrate producing 18 panels of the size.

The 16-inch FHD panels are expected to be US$60-70 more expensive than 15-inch WUXGA panels. As notebooks featuring these panels will also come with blue-ray DVD optical disk drives (ODDs), these notebooks are meant for the top segment of the market.

System vendors estimate that currently 15.4-inch WUXGA notebooks account for 4-6% of the worldwide notebook market, and the 16-inch FHD notebooks is likely to account for less than that, the sources said.

By: DocMemory
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