The joint venture company to be based in Tangjeong, ChungCheongNam-Do, South Korea, will begin manufacturing amorphous TFT LCD panels in the second quarter of 2005. The agreement is the culmination of a memorandum of understanding completed by the partners last October.

S-LCD will have a capital budget of 2.1 trillion won (about $1.8 billion). Stocks will be held by Samsung at 50 percent plus one share of stock and 50 percent minus one by Sony. "The two companies will invest evenly, but Samsung has the ultimate initiative," said a spokeswoman of Sony. Samsung will name the new company's CEO while Sony will will select the chief financial officer.

Samsung and Sony will invest about $20 billion to build a seventh-generation LCD line that handles 1870 x 2200 glass substrates in Tangjeong. Samsung began building its LCD production base in Tangjeong last October, and said it intends to make the area the "Crystal Valley" of the region with investments totaling about $18 billion in a coming decade.

The joint venture line will the first to be built there, and will have a capacity of 60,000 substrates a month. It is scheduled to begin operation in the second quarter of 2005.

Sony thus far has no internal production base for large LCD panels used by its TV business, a shortcoming for for a TV manufacturer. "The joint venture will be Sony's important source of panels for LCD TVs, which will drive Sony's LCD TV business," said the spokeswoman.

By: DocMemory
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