S-LCD Corporation, a joint venture company between Samsung Electronics and Sony, said on Tuesday it began volume production at a new manufacturing facility that took $1.5 billion to build.

S-LCD said in a statement that the new production line would use larger "eighth-generation" (8G) motherglass and produce liquid crystal display (LCD) panels for TV brands including Samsung and Sony.

S-LCD made an investment, which was announced in 2008, of KRW 1.8 trillion in 8-2 line of S-LCD, a production line for LCD TV panels. (Glass substrates size: 2,200�~2,500 mm) From this new line, 32/46/52-inch panels will be mainly produced.

Based on know-how gained from stable operation of 7-1 line and 8-1 line, S-LCD plans to ramp up monthly production capacity up to 70,000 sheets by year-end.

"We'll make all-out efforts to enable Samsung and Sony to overcome current economic crisis and continue to strengthen leadership in the LCD TV market," said Won-Kie Chang, CEO of S-LCD. "Building on the success made at 7-1 line and 8-1 line of S-LCD, we'll continue to produce great achievement at 8-2 line."

S-LCD was established as a joint venture company between Samsung and Sony in 2004, and successfully started operation of 7-1 line in 2005 and 8-1 line in 2007.

Samsung is the world's biggest maker of LCD panels and LCD TV sets, while Sony is the No. 2 LCD TV brand.