Flat panel maker AUO Corp (友達) yesterday urged the government to give priority support to the nation’s LCD industry as it did before, saying the industry is the cornerstone of the country’s major sectors, including semiconductors, and is important to Taiwan’s national security and economic resilience.
AUO chairman Paul Peng made the remarks yesterday after meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) and Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s development along with multiple industrial representatives.
“The government should revisit its industry policies and include the LCD industry as one of the country’s priority industries with supporting policies,” Peng said.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
Not only semiconductors, but also LCD panels play a key role in national security, Peng said. For this reason, the US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last week that the US needs to have chips, flat panels to be made in America, Peng said.
In Taiwan, the LCD industry has built a comprehensive ecosystem over the past 2 decades and it deserves the support of government policies, as it is the cornerstone of the “Five Trusted Industry Sectors” along with the semiconductor sector and has strong links to those prominent sectors in terms of technological support, Peng said.
A number of LCD technologies are now adopted by the semiconductor sector, such as those used in advanced chip packaging technology, or chip-on-wafer-on-substrate technology, Peng said.
LCD companies are also involved in developing optical devices used in photonic integrated circuits and silicon photonics (CPO) technology, an important part of artificial intelligence (AI) servers, he said.
AUO said its subsidiary Ennostar Inc (富采) is developing microLED technology, jumping on the CPO bandwagon.
LCD panel maker Innolux Corp (群創) is tapping into semiconductors to escape the industry’s boom-and-bust cycles, aiming to provide advanced fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) solutions leveraging its panel substrate manufacturing expertise. The company said it aims to ramp up production of its first FOPLP products by the end of this year.
AI, military, security and surveillance, as well as next-generation communications or satellite technology, are among those sectors identified by the Lai administration as the main sectors that have growth potential and would lift Taiwan’s economy’s to the next level.
AUO called on the government to put forward a new industry policy to facilitate the development of the LCD industry and to rejuvenate the industry, Peng said.
The LCD industry creates more than NT$1 trillion (US$30.67 billion) in production value a year, contributing about 4.8 percent to Taiwan’s GDP, making it one of the key pillars of the nation’s economy, he said, adding that the industry employs about 140,000 people.
During his tenure as premier in 2019, Lai mapped out Taiwan’s smart technology strategy through a Cabinet-level Strategic Review Board meeting, encouraging LCD companies to recalibrate on new applications to differentiate themselves from their Chinese peers, AUO president Frank Ko (柯富仁) said.
Doubling as chairman of the Taiwan Display Union Association, Ko was also involved in the discussions on Wednesday.
The strategy proposed by the government proved to be successful, and now the industry needs a new government policy to extend the growth momentum, Ko said.
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