Panasonic - Page 12

Toshiba announced today that it bought Panasonic's stake in TMDisplay, for 20.3M$. TMDisplay is expected to report a loss of 300M$, on sales of 2.7B$ in 2008.

Toshiba will change the name from Toshiba-Matsushita displays to Toshiba Mobile displays (still TMDisplay...). It will also focus on OLED displays.

Earlier in 2008, TMDisplay said they will spend 140M$ on new production lines for AMOLEDs, making 1M 2.5" panels a month. TMDisplay are working on high-efficiency and lifetime panels. 

It seems like Toshiba is going to buy Panasonic's 40% part of their TMDipslay JV. TMDisplay is making small LCDs for mobile devices. They are also working on OLED displays.

Apparantly Panasonic wants to focus on larger plasma and LCD panels.

Dongbu said they developed a driver for AMOLED displays, supporting resolutions up to 1024x768. They will start shipping the drivers in a few months.

Dongbu also said that they are in advanced talks with Panasonic and NEC to supply the chips.

Panasonic is working on OLED lighting panels, using printing methods. They prototypes a high efficiency panel at Printable Electronics 2009.

The OLED lighting panel features a luminance efficiency of 40lm/W and a CRI (color rendering index) value of 95. The external quantum efficiency is 36.1%, and the half-life of the luminance exceeds 20,000 hours when the initial luminance is 1,000cd/m^2.

Read more at TechOn

Already skeptical about the ability of OLED to uproot the TV technology dominance of plasma and LCD in the next few years, the company cast even more doubt on the opening day of Ceatec 2008.

Speaking to a group of reporters, Panasonic AVC Networks President Toshihiro Sakamoto reiterated that OLED TVs will not be made in sizes of 30 inches or greater for now, and it's still not suitable for mass manufacturing. Currently, Panasonic does not have an OLED product on the market, but Sony does: it makes and 11-inch OLED TV, and is working on a 27-inch model.

TechRadar is reporting that Panasonic is set to make 40" OLED TV panels (at first it was 37"). The "unofficial word" is that they will convert their Kyoto Semiconductor R&D lab into an OLED TV factory. It will cost "several dozen billion yen" which means 300M$ and upwards.

They report that at first Panasonic will make a 20" OLED prototype - next spring, which will be followed by mass producing the 40" TVs.

Panasonic doesn't want to stay behind Sony, which is already selling 11" OLED TVs, and is "awfully close" to releasing a 27" model (shown right).

There are reports that Matsushita has plans to mass produce 37" OLED TVs in 3 years. They want to be the first company to make OLED panels over 30". They also have a suggested selling price - 150,000 yen (~1400$).

The TV will be made by Panasonic in the plant owns by the joint-venture between Matsushita, Hitachi and Canon.

Update: Later on Panasonic denied those plans, saying these are only rumors. 

Panasonic's visual products and display devices business senior vice president and director, Masaaki Fujita, said that OLEDs will replace LCDs in the future. Plasma will still get developed, but LCDs will surely be replaced by OLED.

Masaaki says that Plasma has a better future than LCDs because of the self-illuminating nature (no need for backlight), and also because of its low manufacturing cost.

The story we published two days ago about Panasonic's small Plasma displays was a hoax - an April's first joke. The strange thing - it was actually released on April's third! And frankly - that's not really a funny story, is it?

Read more here (engadget)

Panasonic has announced it will start construction of a new LCD television factory in August this year that will more than double their production capacity.

The factory would also produce OLED TVs, but only after the 2010 opening and once the LCD production lines are fully operational.