Recently, Lextar Electronics Corp., a LED-chip manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan's largest TFT-LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp. (AUO), won order from Samsung of South Korea for LCD TV-panel backlights.

Local LED makers said that Lextar would ship in-house packed LEDs to Samsung with LED chips supplied by Nichia of Japan and Epistar of Taiwan.

Lextar Electronics president and chief operating officer (COO) David Su recently called upon the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) Administration Office and told the office that his company plans to cut the area of a previously applied land in the CTSP Houli Base from ten hectares to six hectares.

The sources said that Lextar plans to expand its capacity at a 3.5th-generation (3.5G) panel plant operated by parent company AUO in Hsinchu Science Park and move some production into China. The sources added that if Lextar go to China for developing LED business, the company might locate its production lines in Suzhou of Jiangsu Province or Xiamen of Fujian Province, where AUO also operates LCD module (LCM) facilities.

Lextar is expected to become the major LED-chip supplier in the AUO Group, supplying at least 50% of the needed LEDs used by group affiliates, especially AUO. That, industry sources said, would affect non-affiliated independent LED suppliers.