Portable computer manufacturers are still constrained by the need to rely on a handful of Japanese companies for their flat-panel screens, and Tatung Co wants to get out of the bind by opening an alternative source of supply for some screens in Taiwan. It says its 88.5%-owned subsidiary Chung Hwa Picture Tubes Ltd will invest $100m to build a factory to make supertwist nematic liquid crystal diode displays with technical support from Toshiba Corp, Reuter reports from Taipei. Construction of the plant will begin soon and output is scheduled to start in mid-1995. Hsu Lai-fa, a director of the Taiwan Economics Ministry’s Industrial Development Bureau, said the factory is expected to produce an initial 360,000 displays a year and will reach full production of 800,000 in the fourth year. The value of Chung Hwa’s output is expected to reach $230m in the fourth year, helping to reduce Taiwan’s dependence on imports from Japan. Taiwan made 1.2m notebook computers last year and 90% of them used displays made in Japan. Only Picvue Electronics Ltd now makes twisted nematic displays in Taiwan. Picvue and Nan Ya Plastics Ltd are developing supertwisted nematic displays, the official noted.
