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AU Optronics shifting to LEDs

"We plan to use LED backlights for all of our notebook screens in 2011, which will offer a good business opportunity for LED makers." — Paul Peng, AU Optronics executive vice president

AU Optronics Co (友達光電), the world’s third-largest maker of flat panels, plans to use light-emitting diode (LED) backlights in all of its notebook computer screens by 2011 as PC makers push for thinner, lighter laptop designs to attract customers with improved portability.

Apple Inc set the trend in January by launching its MacBook Air laptop, which weighs 1.36kg and is 1.94cm thick. The model replaces commonly used cold-cathode florescent lamp (CCFL) screens with an LED screen.

“We plan to use LED backlights for all of our notebook screens in 2011, which will offer a good business opportunity for LED makers,” Paul Peng (彭雙浪), executive vice president of AU Optronics, said at a press conference arranged by researcher DisplaySearch on Thursday.

But Peng declined to give details about when the company would start making LEDs at its own factories, rather than purchasing them from suppliers.

Early this month, AU Optronics formed a special task force for developing LEDs led by AU Optronics vice president David Su (蘇峰正), saying that LEDs were an important raw material for flat panels.

Peng said that the plan to replace CCFL screens was part of the company’s efforts to cut its use of toxic materials in liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels.

AU Optronics, which supplies the LED screens for the MacBook Air, is already replacing CCFLs with LEDs as backlights for all wide-format notebook computers and plans to convert 16 percent of its total notebook screens to LED screens this year, Peng said.

Within three years, all of the company’s laptop screens will be LED screens, he said.

It is too early, however, to say how many TV panels will be converted to LED screens, the company said.

As as DisplaySearch forecast that about 12 percent of all laptop panels shipped this year would use LED backlights amid falling prices, with LED backlights accounting for 70 percent by 2011, AU Optronics is planning a relatively fast switch from CCFLs.

Using LED backlights can reduce the weight of a 15.4cm laptop screen by 13 percent and shrink its thickness by 15 percent, Peng said. The LED screen can also cut energy use by 18 percent, Peng said.

LG Display Co, the world’s second-largest LCD panel maker, has a similar road map to adopt LED backlights in flat panels, LG Display vice president David Choi said.

About 10 percent of the company’s notebook panels will use LED backlights this year and the percentage will increase as the price gap between LEDs and CCFLs decreases after next year, Choi said.
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