LG Display will halt its production line for automotive liquid crystal display (LCD) panels after 20 years of operation.

The line at Gumi, called P5, began operation back in 2003 and manufactures Gen 5 (1100x1250mm) a-Si LCD panels.

The company is planning to end production at the line to improve production efficiency, sources said.

LG Display had been reducing its a-Si thin-film transistor (TFT) LCD production for years now, due to the intense competition with China’s BOE and Taiwan’s AUO.

The company is opting to focus on the more sophisticated low-temperature polycrystalline silicon (LTPS) TFT LCDs.

The production volume at P5 will be shifted to the line adjacent to it, the Gen 6 (1500x1850) P6 line.

It is more economical to manufacture the same panels at P6 as they use the larger Gen 6 substrate.

LG Display is currently using its Gumi plant mostly to manufacture plastic OLED. Its plans in China and Vietnam are focused on LTPS TFT LCD and automotive display modules, respectively.

Most panels larger than 20 inches use LTPS TFT LCDs, while a-Si TFT LCDs are used for navigation screens ranging from 7 inches to 8 inches.

While a-Si TFT LCDs are still mostly used for screens on automobiles, more and more cars are adopting LTPS TFT LCDs, which support in-cell touch that a-Si TFT LCDs can’t.

It remains to be seen whether LG Display will convert P5 to manufacture different panels such as iPhone OLED panels as its other lines dedicated to them seem sufficient for now.