J Touch has landed touch panel orders for 5.5-inch tablet PCs from Japan-based Sharp, and the touch panel maker will mainly focus on supplying medium-size touch panels to Sharp and Samsung Electronics.

The Japan-based vendor recently launched 5.5- and 10.1-inch touch screen tablet PCs. J Touch also supplies touch panels for Samsung Electronics' 7-inch Galaxy Tab.

Due to tight supply of glass-based capacitive touch panels, as well as longer design and mass production times and higher cost, some vendors chose film-based capacitive touch panels for tablet PCs in order to introduce their products to the market faster.

J Touch indicated that shipments of medium-size touch panels are expected to increase significantly in the fourth quarter due to surging demand for tablet PCs. Tablet PC sales in the fourth quarter will determine sales in the first quarter of 2011, J Touch noted. A lot of medium-size tablet PC products with touch screen function are in development and are expected to launch in 2011, J Touch added.