Tight supply of 16:9 aspect ratio ultra-thin LCD panels could undermine Acer's efforts in trying to unseat rival vendor Hewlett-Packard from the number one spot in the global notebook market, according to Taiwan news reports.

Taiwan newswire DigiTimes says Acer has been looking to an advance launch of ultra-thin models based on Intel's new consumer ultra-low-voltage (CULV) plaform to deepen its penetration of the market.

The CULV platform envisages a new range of ultra-thin notebooks using more powerful chips than the Atom and which will sell for much less existing lightweights like  Apple's MacBook Air, Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 or Dell's Adamo. Earlier this year Intel boss Paul Otellini forecast that CULV laptops would become a big trend, possibly overtaking netbooks. He predicted CULV models would sell in the $699-800 range.

Intel is said to be aiming at a marketplace of 10 million notebooks running on the CULV platform in 2009.

Already with a big share of the netbook market ­ but not making much money form the low margin machines ­  Acer aims to strike first with CULV.

According to DigiTimes, Wistron is expected to start volume production of Acer's 14.1-inch and 15.6-inch CULV notebooks in April with panels from AU Optronics, but AUO's 16:9 ratio ultra-thin panel capacity is not yet enough to fully meet Acer's demand. Korean panel makers will not start CULV panel production until the second half of 2009.

Industry source said supply should ease later in the second quarter, as AUO has increased production of 14.1-inch and 15.6-inch panels to more than 300,000 units for April and is expected to continue increasing the capacity in May and June.