Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp said it will start production at the world’s most advanced LCD panel factory two months ahead of schedule, and aims to offer flat TVs equipped with the panels by the key year-end shopping season.

Sharp, which vies with Sony Corp, Samsung Electronics and Philips Electronics for top spot in the liquid crystal display TV market, said the plant in Kameyama, western Japan, would start operations with the capacity to process 15,000 glass substrates per month. The factory, Sharp’s second in Kameyama, will be the world’s first to cut panels from eighth-generation glass, able to yield eight 45-inch panels, compared with just three panels from the sixth-generation glass used at the first Kameyama plant.
That means it will have the capacity to churn out 120,000 45-inch LCD panels per month. Sharp plans to double motherglass processing capacity to 30,000 panels by next March and eventually ramp that up to 90,000 substrates by 2008.
Sharp said earlier this year it would invest an additional 200 billion yen to boost output at the second plant, bringing total investment in the project to about 350 billion yen.
Larger motherglass enables LCD makers to cut more panels from a single substrate, boosting manufacturing efficiency. Sony and Samsung now use seventh-generation glass in their joint venture but plan to build a new eighth-generation line next year.