Reuters Canada: Have you heard of a Sanyo TV? I haven’t. In Japan, I guess, Sanyo is a big name in CRT TVs. Maybe that’s why I haven’t heard of Sanyo TVs: I don’t plan on purchasing a CRT TV in the foreseeable future. Sanyo is bleeding money. Quanta Computer, the parent company to Quanta Displays Inc. (QDI), agreed on a TV business alliance with Sanyo on August 11 (today). FYI, QDI is being bought out by AU Optronics (AUO) because it is not big enough to compete with the 600-pound gorillas such as LG.Philips LCD (LPL), Samsung, AUO, and Sharp. So, you put a small display manufacturer like QDI and mate it with a loss-making old-tech TV manufacturer such as Sanyo and expect to see good things? I doubt it.
Sanyo stated that it will be moving its TV division’s HQ to the US to make it independent of the mother company and make it speedy. A return to profits is expected by the end of its business year ending March 2007. Sanyo has tried to forge an alliance with Nokia to make CDMA mobile phones, but Nokia nixed that idea in June.
Should we expect SanTa, Quanyo, Yota-branded TVs in the future? And when we do get to see these, will we want to forgo a Samsung or Sony-branded TV for one of these? Most likely not. But, before all is lost, let me make a few recommendations: locate the TV business HQ to China. Get closer to your LCD panel source, QDI in this case, and sell low-margin hiqh-quantity LCD TVs to the local Chinese market who might regard the Sanyo brand as better than the locals. This might be the only way to survive, for the time being.
Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is used to put a transparent conductive coating for LCDs. And there are only a few companies that make ITO. In the oligopoly-like market for ITO, the limited number of suppliers set the price and usually very high. Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) ordered ITO from Samsung Corning. Samsung Corning has sent samples of ITO to AU Optronics (AUO) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO). Most of the ITO suppliers are based in Japan with Nippon Mining & Metals and Mitsui Mining & Smelting owning about 43% each. Tosoh, a smaller player, has about 10% share. Samsung Corning is the smallest player with only a 5% share of ITO.
Samsung Corning was established in 1973 as a 50:50 joint venture with Corning, USA. Samsung Corning manufactures glass for LCDs, Braun tubes, ITO coating glass for LCDs, and rotary transformers that are used for VCR head drums. I’m pretty sure the rotary transformer business is experiencing a significant downturn. Just a guess.
Source: DigiTimes, Samsung
[tags]Samsung Corning, Samsung, Corning, Indium Tin Oxide, ITO, Chunghwa Picture Tubes, CPT, Chi Mei Optoelectronics, CMO, AU Optronics, AUO[/tags]
It always bothers me when company executives start to sell millions of dollars worth of stocks. They must know something that we don’t. Or maybe it is just a coincidence they all want to get that new $5,000,000 house and a new Porsche… at the same time. CNNMoney is reporting that insiders at Corning sold almost $28 million in company stock in early August. The reason? Because they were not allowed to sell shares in April.
Corning explained further that every quarter the company normally opens a window so insiders can sell their shares. Well, they didn’t do that in April because Corning knew that demand for optical fiber and glass used in LCDs was softening and the information was not disclosed to the open markets at the time. When Corning did disclose that information, Wall Street responded by pounding the stock 14%.
So in early August, the window was opened for the insiders. And the insiders took advantage and sold their shares… $28M worth. I’m still skeptical.
Although Corning has a very strong position in the glass for LCD market, maybe the fiber optics market wasn’t too congenial to Corning. Who knows.
Source: CNNMoney
[tags]Corning, LCD Glass[/tags]
Indium is a key metal component in manufacturing liquid crystal display panels. Indium is used to produce indium tin oxide (ITO). Prices for indium has dropped to $720-$760 per kilogram, a major drop from $1000 in May, just a few months ago. This price drop was the result of Chinese “distressed selling”. Total consumption numbers are hard to come by.
ITO is a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and when applied as a thin coating will be transparent to visible light with wavelengths between 0.4 and 0.8 microns and electrically conductive. About 45% of all indium is used in ITO and virgin indium is produced in these countries (production figures in 2002):
Australia – ?? (Amac Alloys)
Belgium – 40mt
Bolivia – ??
Canada – 45mt (Falconbridge, Teck Cominco)
China – 85mt (Changsha Fengchao Pigment Chemical, Dongwu Nonferrous Metals Mine, Huludao Zinc Industry Company, Liuzhou China Tin Group, Jiangxi Copper Company, Nanjing Germanium Plant, Tianjin Indium Products Company, Yunnan Tin Company, Zhuzhou Smelter)
Dominican Republic
France – 65mt
Germany – ?? (Fremat, HEK, PPM Pure Metals)
Italy – ??
Japan – 60mt (Asahi Pretec Corp., Dowa Mining Co., Japan Energy Corp., Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co., Shinko Chemical Co., Sumitomo Electric Industries, Sumitomo Metal Mining Co.)
Kazakhstan – ??
Namibia – ??
Netherlands – ??
Peru – 5mt
Russia – 15mt
South Korea
Taiwan – ??
Ukraine – ??
United Kingdom – ??
USA – ?? (AIM Inc., Alfa Aesar, Belmont Metals Inc., Indium Corp. of America, McP Metalspecialities Inc., Umicore Indian Products)
Uzbekistan – ??
Virgin indium is only recovered as a by-product of metals such as lead and zinc. After 2002, France’s Metaleurop indium refinery with a 65mt/year capacity closed. Zinc’s low prices have reduced zinc production that has led to supply limitations. In China, severe mining accidents have shut down some Chinese operations: Liuzhou Zing Group is considering a total stop in production, taking out a 25mt/year supply. Even though supply is limited, because only a small portion of the ITO target is used during sputtering, up to 80% can be recycled.
Indium is used as a doping agent for the fabrication of compound semiconductors, indium-based compounds in laser diode applications, photodetectors, fiber optic telecommunications, LEDs (indium-based red-green LEDs, indium-based blue-green LEDs, ultra-violet LEDs, white LEDs), thin-film photovoltaic cells, high-efficiency multijunction devices, optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs).
ITO at 100nm
ITO at 50nm
ITO at 10nm
Advanced Nanomaterials began offering ITO as AdNano and is in the qualification phase for different applications. A related metal, zinc oxide, will be produced at a 100 metric ton annual capacity beginning in 2007 due to a new reactor at Advanced Nanomaterials. ITO is transparent, has electrical conductivity, and absorbs infrared radiation that can be used to reduce solar radiation in automobile windshields and building windows to reduce energy consumption. ITO can be added to paints and coatings to produce anti-static and highly transparent surfaces.
ITO layers can even be used for flexible/rollable displays. Currently ITO layers are sputter coated on rigid glass substrates that leads to limited mechanical flexibility. With ink-jet printing technologies, the deposition process can be replaced with a simple printing process using flexible substrates such as plastic that allow more freedom of design.
Another supplier of ITO is Umicore. According to Umicore, ITO is not only used for manufacturing flat panel displays but solar cells, touch screens, architectural glass with solar control, antistatic glass, smart windows, electromagnetic shielding and DNA-selecting chips.
Source: Reuters, Azonano, Umicore, the-infoshop.com, Kemco International Associates, Nanophase
[tags]Indium, Advanced Nanomaterials, ITO, Indium Tin Oxide, AdNano, Umicore, Transparent Conductive Oxide, TCO[/tags]
Samsung announced that its 40″ LCD TV with a LED backlight will ship next month. Conventional LCD TVs use CCFL backlights. Although CCFL has served the consumers for decades as the backlight of choice, new technology such as LEDs have been challenging CCFL’s dominance. LEDs provide a much wider color gamut, up to greater than 100% NTSC, while traditional CCFLs have been limited to 72%. Due to the recent challenge of LEDs, CCFL suppliers have had to improve their designs and most CCFLs geared toward LCD TVs have up to 92% NTSC. Competition is a good thing. Another CCFL challenge was that over time, the brightness would deteriorate slowly and had a lifetime of about 50,000 hours, plenty for most. LEDs on the other hand has a virtually uniform brightness up to 50,000 hours, at which the brightness falls to 50% through 100,000 hours.
But LEDs are not without problems. Cost is one thing: because LEDs are new as a display backlight, they are more expensive than CCFLs. These LEDs generate a lot of heat. If heat is not managed well, it can also have detrimental effects on lifetimes, like most electronics. Related to the problem of heat and lifetime issues is the need to use hundreds if not thousands at 25%-30% of power, adding to the cost. These challenges are currently being worked on, but I would not hesistate to recommend waiting for second or third generation models that have LED backlights before biting the bullet. It might be hard to wait because the color is simply amazing.
Samsung’s LNR460D
Back in early January 2005 (CES), Samsung launched its 46″ LCD TV with LED backlighting, the LNR460D that had Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080), 100,000-hour lifetime, 105% NTSC color gamut, 500 cd/m2 and 170-degree viewing angles and was priced at wallet burning $12999.
Source: Gizmodo, c|net, Samsung
[tags]Samsung, LED, LED Backlight, LCD TV, 40″, 1920 x 1080, Full HD, 1080p[/tags]