Comments on: Glass Substrate Supply Tightens Again

By: Earthquake in Taiwan May Further Tighten TFT LCD Supply-Demand | DisplaySearch Blog

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:31:10 +0000

[...] to the earthquake, the glass substrate supply was tight because panel makers raised utilization faster than the glass makers. The impact of the earthquake, [...]

By: Shawn Lee

Shawn Lee — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 07:45:05 +0000

It is tough time for panel makers to buy glass substrates now. Tier one panel makers like to raise loading rate, but glass makers have quality issues which imapct the supply of glass substrates, including NEG and Corning; the supply is very tight now. The quality issues will be solved after middle of January in next year, panel makers are eager to have glass substrates now. The supply/demand of glass substrates is almost 0% now.

By: Shawn Lee

Shawn Lee — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:48:26 +0000

From Q2′09, glass makers have been re-ramped most of tanks that were shut down before; but it needs 2 months at least to make the tanks restoring. This impacted the supply and quality of glass substrates until now. Originally glass makers want to fine-tune the tanks in the end of Q4′09 to fulfill reqursts in 2010. But panel makers all keep Gen6 above LCD fabs are full loading now, which affects that glass makers can not solve the quality issues, and supply is tight again. Glass makers will speed up fine-tune and re-ramp up tanks to fulfill panel makers’ requests, glass makers expect all of issues will be solved before Q1′10.

By: Andrew Abrams

Andrew Abrams — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:00:17 +0000

So is this a carefully planned scenario foisted by the glass producers or just an accedental set of unusual circumstances. Glass has remained quite tight throughout much of the 2nd half of 2009 as glass production was below demand. Did the glass manufacturers underestimate how quickly they needed to bring back capacity, or did they intentionally keep production levels low?