LCD Screen Cost (to Manufacturer) ?

I’m doing a little feasibility research for a school project concept, and am having a hard time finding how much an LCD costs to manufacture. Does anyone know roughly how much it costs to make a decent 13" LCD? 17"? 20"?

Thanks!

Are you looking at just the panel itself, or an entire monitor?

Also what constitutes as “decent”?

Considering you can buy a 17" Computer monitor for $100, it’s safe to assume the LCD panel itself is in the $20-30 range depending on the size and type of panel. A lower end 20" panel would be more, but probably still under $100.

Thanks Cyberdemon - I was referring to just the panel itself. Does touch screen functionality add cost to that, or is it just software-based?

A touch screen is a module that sits on top of the LCD panel. It is an additional cost, and again theyre are many different types of touchpanels (capacative, resisitive) that all have pros and cons. You start getting much much more expensive when talking about a 20" touchscreen.

Alright, I’ll try to learn more on my own. Thanks again for your help.

As a good example, try and find a product very similar to what you’re looking for. (Display quality and touchscreen type) then assume about 1/3rd of that price is the actual manufacturing cost. Good way to give yourself a ballpark figure. Just keep in mind what other technology is included that you wouldnt use, and you can subtract some price from that.

One good example might be the HP Touchsmart PC. It’s a 22" high quality display with multitouch, with a full computer and TV tuner built in, and it starts at only $1200. Subtract say $500 for the computer components and divide by 3 and you get a reasonable ballpark. In reality companies nitpick down to every penny, but if this is a student project it’s probably fair to use those ballpark figures.

Showing you’ve considered price is usually good enough in student projects…I remember a girl in school who once designed a carbon fiber sh!t bucket for horses. She said she wanted to use carbon fiber to haul around horse manure because “it was light and strong”. I couldn’t help but shout “so is plastic”. :open_mouth:

I did find something useful on the G1 phone:

“The next most costly section of the G1 is the display, at $19.67, or 13.7 percent of the BOM. The G1Ã’s display is a 3.2-inch TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive screen with HVGA resolution, at 320 by 480 pixels. The display uses projective touch-screen technology.”

So $20 for a 3.2" touch screen (wouldn’t need multi-touch)…Would it be fair to say $100 for a 15" touchscreen, or does it scale up or down?

$100 seems reasonable, it’s actually probably less but thats within the ballpark I’m sure.

http://store.ramplus.com/ltmi15tosclc.html

Theres a resistive 15" touch screen for $320 - so if you follow the / 3 rule then $100 is pretty fair (also remembering that a monitor also has the plastic casing, power supplies, and other materials that add cost).