Japan Earthquake Hits Global LCD Industry

Once again, it seems that, predictably, the massive destruction in Japan is about to take its toll on a segment of the IT industry, in this case that of LCD flat panels, although the effect appears to be minor.

The natural disaster that hit Japan last week can easily be classified as one of the most devastating in recent history.

Basically, an earthquake awoke in the ocean waters to the northeast of Tokyo, tremors that were ranked 8.9 in magnitude.

The same earthquake caused tsunamis to sweep down and strike the coast furiously, leading to a truly massive level of destruction, with over 10,000 expected casualties and even danger of nuclear meltdown at one of the power plants.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is scrambling to establish what sort of effect this all will have on a global scale.

For the IT industry, the DRAM and NAND segments, among others, will suffer their own shares of consequences, especially the former, considering that Japanese DRAM maker Elpida was shut down by power outages.

It appears that the LCD market will not escape the onslaught either, although reports do say that the impact will be relatively limited.

The reason for this is that, fortunately, the majority of flat panel supply chains, including the newest and best LCD fabs, are located in areas away from the epicenter of the earthquake. The same goes for facilities that manufacture glass substrates, color filers and polarizers.

Among the examples were Sharp's LCD fabs, located in Kansai, which have been working normally, while any others should be able to resume operation in a day or so.

There are, of course, fabs whose situation is not altogether clear, but they are, for the most part, meant for older-generation production lines, so they won't hit the supply chain that hard.