AGC (Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.) has announced that it will open a new production base in Jiangsu, China for TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) glass substrates. The plant, with the name…
AGC (Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.) has announced that it will open a new production base in Jiangsu, China for TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) glass substrates. The plant, with the name AGC Display Glass (Kunshan) Co., Ltd., is scheduled to start operations in Autumn 2011, and will include facilities to process (cutting and polishing) up to 8th generation glass substrates. Demand for TFT-LCD panels has remained relatively strong, and is expected to continue to see an annual growth rate of 10 to 20%. In line with demand for glass substrates, AGC has expanded capacity and has strived to raise productivity at its facilities in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, with a new furnace starting operations in Korea, and expansions underway in Taiwan. With regards to China, AGC is supplying orders by shipping from existing production bases, but plans to produce large sized TFT-LCD panels in China are arising, and the future demand for large sized glass substrates is expected to grow greatly. And this is the reason why AGC has decided to set up this new facility, and thus establish a production system with enough flexibility to respond to the growth of the Chinese market, in coordination with its operations in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.