Toshiba announced yesterday it plans to convert Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology (TMD) into a wholly owned subsidiary. TMD is an LCD manufacturing joint venture formed by Toshiba and Matsushita (now Panasonic). The joint venture produces around 10% of small LCD panels. It’s second only to Sharp in this market segment.

Toshiba said it will buy Panasonic’s 40% stake in TMD on April 28 for a $20 million, increasing its own interest to 100%. The company also announced plans to completely restructure TMD, lower production costs and think about mass-manufacturing of OLED TVs. And it seems something needs to be done, indeed. For fiscal 2008, which ended March 31, TMD is rumored to have suffered $30 million operating loss.

TMD was established in 2002. The new company will be called Toshiba Mobile Display Company.