Plant will be the first facility in China capable of handling all aspects of TFT-LCD production NEC Corp. has teamed up with Shanghai’s SVA (Group) Co. Ltd. to build a joint-venture manufacturing plant for TFT-LCD (thin film transistor liquid crystal display) panels, the Tokyo, Japan, company said Monday.The joint-venture company, Shanghai SVA NEC Liquid Crystal Display Co. Ltd., will develop and manufacture TFT-LCD panels and modules for use in PC monitors and televisions aimed at China’s booming electronics market, NEC said in a statement. The plant will be the first facility in China capable of handling all aspects of TFT-LCD production, it said.Shanghai SVA NEC Liquid Crystal Display has been invested with capital totalling ¥50 billion ($460.6 million) and is 75 percent owned by SVA with NEC holding a 25 percent stake, the statement said. The joint venture will spend ¥85 billion to construct a fifth-generation TFT-LCD fabrication plant (fab) that will open in October 2004, it said. The fab is expected to produce 45,000 sheets per month using 1,100-millimeter by 1,300-millimeter glass substrates and will initially employ a staff of 1,200, according to the statement.NEC spun off its TFT-LCD operations in April, establishing a separate company, NEC LCD Technologies Ltd. The joint venture with SVA will be used to develop and produce commodity TFT-LCD products, the company said.The announcement that NEC and SVA will open a TFT-LCD fab in Shanghai comes as a boom is predicted for the construction of such plants. Led by manufacturers in Taiwan and South Korea, investments in TFT-LCD production capacity are expected to hit record levels next year, driven higher by growing demand for notebooks, flat-panel PC monitors and LCD TVs, according to DisplaySearch Inc., a U.S. market analyst that tracks the market closely. Spending on TFT-LCD manufacturing equipment will grow 27 percent in 2004 to reach $8.3 billion, DisplaySearch said.This increase in investment is a result of several factors, DisplaySearch said. With pricing for TFT-LCD panels high and a positive outlook for future demand, TFT-LCD producers are advancing the construction schedules of plants slated to be built in 2005 to 2004, it said. In addition, some plants scheduled to be built in 2003 have been delayed to 2004, contributing to the “rosy” industry outlook, it said. Technology Industry