AU Optronics is to start production at its second 8.5G
plant in the second half of 2010. The outfit is expecting demand growth for large-size LCD
panels to grow like topsy next year.
Company president and CEO, LJ Chen told
DigiTimes
that his outfit is working out details for the second 8.5G fab in
Houli,
central Taiwan. The cunning plan is to increase its capacity in the
fourth quarter of 2009, ramping its monthly 7.5G capacity to 100,000
substrates, and 8.5G capacity to 40,000 substrates by the end of 2009.
Chen has been consulting his iChing and predicts that
global TFT-LCD panel area shipments will increase by 17-18 per cent next
year. This means that his company will increase its total capacity
to match it. The company also thinks that the launch of Windows 7 will
generate replacement demand for notebooks, and the company expects
notebook and netbook shipments to reach 160 million and under 40
million units in 2010 worldwide.
Global monitor shipments are estimated to be about
170-180 million units in 2010. The company has consulted the runes and is fairly sure
that all-in-one PC shipments are estimated to reach 10 million units
worldwide next year.