FHP will add the third line at its production facility in Miyazaki, on a southern island of Japan while accelerating expansion of its present line to 100,000 units a month.

Construction of new line will start early next year, with production starting at the end of 2005 at a monthly capacity of 50,000 units (42-inch panels). The company intends to invest a total ¥75 billion (about $674 million) on the new line to establish the production system that can deliver 150,000 units a month when volume production starts in 2007.

"The 150,000 unit a month is not a capacity but the volume that actually we can supply," an FHP spokesman said. "As the leading PDP supplier, we are responsible for how many panels we can surely supply," said the spokesman, suggesting it will achieve a high yield rate at the new fab.

FHP is currently producing 50,000 PDP panels a month at its Plant No. 2. The line will be expanded to 70,000 units a month in June, and double to 100,000 units in January 2005, about four months ahead of the original plan. "Demand is surpassing supply. The TV market is growing faster than we projected," the spokesman said.

FHP predicts that the PDP market will expand from 1.4 million units in 2003 to as many as 10 million units in 2007.

Combining the output of the current and planned plants, FHP said it aims to establish a maximum monthly supply capacity of 250,000 units or 3 million units annually by 2007.

Plant No.2 uses 1460 x 1030 mm glass substrates from which two 42-inch or slightly larger panels are produced. For Plant No. 3, it will decide the most effective glass substrate size around 2006 when the new fab begins volume production, said a spokesman.

By: DocMemory
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