Samsung Display is predicting that yields of its LCD business, which reduced greatly as it applied new method in last first quarter, will be normalized again sometime during second quarter.
“Although we applied a new method to increase our competitive edge in LCD continuously, problems had occurred during production due to high level of difficulty in technologies.” said Director Lee Chang-hoon of Samsung Display at a conference call that was held on the 28th to announce first quarter’s performance. “We have solved most of problems and we predict that everything will return to normal in second quarter.”
Samsung Display attempted 3 to 4 changes to its processes at LCD production line for TVs during first quarter. It changed thickness of glass membrane from 5mm to 4mm and also introduced COA or COF (Color Filter on TFT Array) process that eliminates upper exposure process and places a color filter on top of lower TFT.
Although Samsung Display attempted variety of changes to its processes such as using BCS (Black Column Spacer), which combines Black Matrix and Column Spacer into one, for the first time to reduce production cost, it ran into a problem where yields reduced greatly. Problem regarding yields had huge effect in increasing amount of deficit for LCD business in first quarter.
“We expect that our profitability will improve in second quarter as supply and demand for LCD is improved and as yields for TV panels stabilize.” said Samsung Display. “We also expect bigger improvement in performance compared to previous quarter as there will be more sales of Galaxy S7 and as foreign transaction lines for small and medium-sized OLED panels expand.”
Staff Reporter Bae, Okjin | withok@etnews.com