In an alliance that will be deemed unholy (by their competitors) yet practical (say the analysts), Sharp and Toshiba unite to save the world…I mean, make beautiful LCD TVs together.

It’s basically a trade deal – Toshiba agrees to buy Sharp’s LCD panels and Sharp, in turn, will buy Toshiba’s semiconductors. Both will use these newly acquired parts in their own branded LCD TVs. That’s as much as I gathered from Reuter’s reporting.

Where once plasma was once deemed to be the large TV king, it has now become far more cost-effective to make large-size LCD TVs instead. Technology has stepped up to the point you can make colossally huge LCD panels and then cut them up to make 40-inchers and the like. These large source ‘master’ sheets are called motherglass and Sharp is building a plant that can manufacture motherglass measuring 8.7 square metres. That’s enough to create six 65-inch panels or eight 57-inch LCDs or, to the maximum, 15 42-inch panels. Plasma just doesn’t have that flexibility.

So does this spell the end of plasma TVs? It’s too soon to say but if LCD prices continue to drop and demand increases, plasma just might end up becoming a very niche market that caters only to the very, very discerning where picture quality is concerned. And maybe, just maybe, that isn’t a bad thing.

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Entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 2:22 pm under LCD.

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