China licenses Toshiba/IBM TFT technology

TOKYO — IBM Corp. and Toshiba Corp. have agreed to license their thin film transistor (TFT) LCD production technology to China National Electronics Import and Export Jilin Co. and Jilin Electronics Co. Ltd. (Changchun, China).

Urged by the potentially strong demand for TFT LCDs in China, negotiations for the agreement were triggered by Toshiba executive's visit to China to lecture on LCD technology.

Toshiba and IBM will transfer TFT LCD production technology and provide some of the production equipment used in the Himeji, China factory of Display Technologies Inc. (DTI), the LCD joint venture of Toshiba and IBM.

Jilin Electronics will install a production line that will be transferred from the DTI factory to a new plant scheduled to be completed by the middle of next year. The Himeji line uses 300- x 400-mm substrates and has a capacity of 30,000 substrates per month. TFT production at the new line is scheduled to begin by the end of next year.

Established in February, Jilin Electronics currently produces twisted nematic (TN) and super TN LCDs.