Touch user interfaces have made significant advances in the consumer electronics market particularly for mobile phones and notebook computers, opening the door for adoption in other applications including white goods, computer peripherals, medical equipment, and instrumentation. Synaptics made its debut in the home appliance market earlier this year with the launch of the Samsung Hauzen ZERO air conditioner.
The standout products on day three of the SID 2010 conference is Universal Display's new PHOLED display architecture with a unique four-color, sub-pixel design, which promises to drive commercial development of all-phosphorescent active-matrix OLEDs and Sony's tiny rollable OLED display that can wrap around a pencil.
Smaller distributors were the only ones to post sales gains in 2009. Interestingly, two of the five distributors that posted growth last year -- Interstate Connecting Components and Sherburn Electronics -- derive 100 percent of their sales from interconnect products. Both of them also target the military/aerospace industry. Here are the top 10 sales leaders by ICs, passives/electromechanical devices, interconnects and computer products as well as sales growth.
Earthquake disrupts LCD glass supply, no major impact on panel production, says iSuppli
El Segundo, Calif. — An earthquake in Japan this month has caused Corning to suspend production at its glass manufacturing facility in Shizuoka, reports iSuppli Corp. The market researcher says the suspension will slightly worsen the existing shortage of glass for LCDs, but isn’t likely to have a major impact on panel supply during the holiday season.
“This supply interruption will disrupt LCD production at Sharp. Corp.’s eighth-generation fab, which supplies panels for 32-inch and 40-inch as well as larger LCD-TVs,” said Sweta Dash, senior director of LCD research for iSuppli, in a statement. “However, with glass suppliers increasing their output to meet rising demand for Christmas, the overall demand for this key raw material is expected to exceed demand by the start of the fourth quarter.”
All other LCD glass facilities operated by Corning and other glass manufacturers worldwide continue to operate normally. Corning expects to restore its Shizuoka facility to full production within a few months.
According to iSuppli’s report, Glass Shortages Impacted Large LCD Panel Supply in July, after suffering a supply glut of 13 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, conditions shifted significantly in the first quarter of 2009 as panel makers idled many of their production lines to adjust to lower demand, which caused demand to exceed supply by 0.5 percent in the first quarter, according to iSuppli.
The undersupply rose to 1 percent in the second quarter primarily due to strong panel demand, especially from China’s television market. iSuppli expects the shortage to intensify in the third quarter to a 2 percent undersupply, before reversing to a 4 percent oversupply in the fourth quarter as panel demand slows following the holiday purchasing season.
While the glass shortage has contributed to tight supply of large-sized LCD panels (with diagonal dimensions of 10 inches or more), the major factor behind the short supply is strong demand, said iSuppli
“In a positive sign for the global large-sized LCD market, panels are in short supply mainly due to strong demand from television and PC makers that are building supply in advance of the Christmas selling season,” Dash said. “This indicates that computer, monitor and LCD-TV makers are anticipating strong demand during the upcoming holiday season.”
Contributing to the shortage, LCD panel buyers are placing more orders than they really need, in order to secure supply in the face of limited availability and despite some increase in inventories among channels and buyers. Some Taiwanese suppliers are concerned that their supplies may be impacted if glass shipments are diverted to Japan, said iSuppli.
Previously idled glass tanks are expected to return to normal production levels by the end of August, and in the fourth quarter, most of the glass issues are expected to be resolved, allowing panel suppliers to operate at full production levels.
As a result, many panel suppliers are already planning expansions of their newer eighth- , 8.5- and tenth-generation fabs in the fourth quarter, said iSuppli.
Supply issues have also impacted pricing trends. iSuppli said the combination of strong demand and short supply caused large-sized panel prices to rise sharply during July. For example, the price of a 32-inch WXGA television LCD panel climbed 10.4 percent in July and 5.8 percent in August.
While the increase in pricing is good news for panel suppliers that have faced several quarters of pricing at below manufacturing costs, manufacturers of TVs, desktop PC monitors and notebook computers will see their profitability squeezed by rising panel prices, said Dash.
Dash expects a downward price correction in the fourth quarter as the industry shifts to an oversupply scenario, however, he said the “correction could be of a greater magnitude than the industry expects.”
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