123JUMP.com: Corning expects sequential LCD glass volume to be flat to 5% down compared to a previous guidance of flat to 5% up. For the entire year, Corning expects LCD glass volume to grow between 40% and 50% and that the company will grow faster than the market. Corning expects volume growth to be roughly 70% for 1H’06 compared to 1H’05. The company expects LCD TV penetration of overall TVs to hit 19% and forecasted TVs shipped into the retail markets to hit 41 million, up from 38 million. A lightning struck Corning’s glass plant in Shizuoka, Japan and the company expects that it will be back on-line in June 2006.
DigiTimes: This is an interesting turn of events. As you know, Philips is part owner of LG.Philips LCD (LPL). LPL is one of the top LCD manufacturers in the world and its G7 fab that just recently start mass production focuses on 42″ and 47″ LCD TV panels. It seems Philips is using Chinese TV integrator Xiamen Overseas Chinese Electronics to build its 42″ LCD TVs and in turn Xiamen is prefering to use 42″ LCD TV panels from AUO rather than LPL.
The AUO-built 42″ panel is different from LPL’s from a technical point of view. LPL is one of only two LCD manufacturers that build panels using a technology called In-Plane Switching (IPS). The other one is IPS Alpha, based in Japan. For some reason, Apple’s LCD monitors and all-in-ones like its iMacs only use IPS panels supplied by LPL, and for good reason.
Personally, I think they look better. And if customers of Apple, like designers for instance, like using these displays, there must be something there. Apple knows its customers and what they need: displays that have accurate color reproduction. I have digressed a mile. AUO uses vertical alignment (VA) technology for its panels. VA is simpler to manufacture and results in slightly better cost structures that leads to panels that are cheaper for folks such as Xiamen to procure. This in turn makes Philips happy because they are building a 42″ LCD TV that costs less, meaning either a cheaper price at Best Buy, or more profit margins with the same price at Best Buy. I hope Apple makes a LCD TV with IPS panels soon in the future. I’ll be a customer of that for sure.
Apple MacBook
Display Size: 13.3″
Pixel Format: 1280 x 768 or 1280 x 800
Availability: 2H’06
Price: $999
Many rumors abound regarding Apple’s MacBook. This entry will focus on the display. It is pretty certain that the MacBook (non-Pro) will use a 13.3″ LCD in widescreen format. The resolution? Most likely in the 1280 x 768 – 1280 x 800 range with roughly 250nits of brightness. There might be a prototype in the works to show off soon, but mass production will have to wait until the second half of 2006. You see, without the display, a notebook PC is nothing and that goes for the MacBook too. 13.3″ wide will probably be supplied by a handful of LCD manufacturers such as Samsung, LG.Philips LCD, AUO and CMO. Mass production of their 13.3″ wide will not start until the end of the second quarter, at least, according to some sources. Apple has said that it would be one of the most affordable iBooks (now MacBook) and if that’s the case, I’m guessing it’ll be $998, $1 cheaper than the previous iBook G4 12″.
Apple just introduced the MacBook, the successor to the iBook. But with one crucial difference, or many. The screen went wide. It’s about time. For the longest time, the 12″ iBooks and PowerBooks were the only Apple NBPCs that had screens with a 4:3 aspect ratio. The MacBook changes all of that and replaces both the 12″ iBook and the 12″ PowerBook. The screen as a 1280 x 800 pixel format and is supplied by one or more of these companies: AUO, CMO, LPL and Samsung. These LCD panels provide 250nits of luminance and is 5.5mm thick and weighs 350g. Of course, the MacBook has all the goodies such as built-in iSight, iLife, FrontRow, etc. and comes in either Black or White. But… if you want the black you have to go with the $1499.00 2.0GHz Core Duo as I am not seeing the 1.83GHz version in black. I guess black is in.
Most notebook PCs sport a LCD panel with a 4:3 aspect ratio. You have 15-inch XGA, 15-inch SXGA+, 15-inch UXGA, 14.1-inch XGA, 14.1-inch SXGA+, etc. Now there is a major shift underway. 4:3 is going away and so is the 15:9 wide. Now it’s 16:10′s turn. A 15:9 aspect ratio on a notebook PC usually means that the LCD panel has a 1280 x 768 resolution. Well, with advances in driver ICs that can drive more TFT lines per chip than before we are seeing the resolution increase to 1280 x 800, a 16:10 aspect ratio. Higher resolutions such as 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 exist too. Of course, large TVs (20″+) will more or less be 16:9 following the HD picture format.
