Apple may be working on OLED and micro-LED technology at its new laboratory in Taiwan. Taiwanese website, DigiTimes, has published a report which states that that the company is developing flexible OLEDs for use in iPhones and iPads. The same website then published another report which said that Apple may also also be developing micro-LED displays at the same facility.
DigiTimes’ Research Analyst, Jessie Lins says, “it is still too early to know whether Apple plans to use micro-LED displays for existing or new applications. Apple is showing signs of moving toward OLED for most of its small- to medium-size products as early as 2017-2018 based on emerging developments in the display industry.”
Earlier this week, Bloomberg had published a report which said that Apple had opened a new production laboratory located in Longtan, northern Taiwan. According to the report, the new facility has at least 50 engineers and other workers making new displays. Bloomberg also said that Apple recruited people from AU Optronics Corp. and Qualcomm Inc. which used to own the building .
Apple had acquired micro-LED display maker, LuxVue Technology in 2014 and the company has filed for a number of patents on micro-LEDs. Unlike conventional LCDs, micro-LEDs do not require backlighting and allows for better colour gamut and high resolutions. However, the technology suffers from low yields when used in a TFT manufacturing process, which makes it difficult to mass produce.
Apple has been granted a patent for flexible electronic devices which leads to the speculation that the iPhone 7 may feature curved displays, similar to the ones found on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. It has also been suggested that the next generation of iPhones are going to be as thin as the current iPod Touch and the iPad Air 2. There have also been rumours that the next iPhone may ditch the Home button all together. Apple may also be developing its own GPU. This move would negate its dependency on Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR GPU found in current iPhones.
Source: DigiTimes