Circuit board maker Flexium hedges bets on OLED-equipped iPhones from Apple

Operating on the assumption that Apple is building an OLED iPhone, flexible circuit board maker Flexium is developing products that can be paired with the display technology, a report said on Thursday.

The work will allow Flexium to win a majority of flexible board orders from Apple in the second half of 2017, DigiTimes sources claimed. The supplier has been a regular Apple partner, providing components for iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Indeed DigiTimes hinted that Flexium may be counting on Apple's 2017 iPhones, as its revenues were flat year-over-year for the first 11 months of 2016 and are expected to decline starting this month due to softening iPhone 7 demand. For iPhone suppliers, orders do typically slow down once Apple begins post-holidays production.

Apple is generally believed to be working on three iPhone models for fall next year — two relatively conventional LCD-based models, and a more advanced design with a curved OLED display. The LCD models may measure 4.7- and 5.5-inches, like the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but it's thought that the OLED device could sit at either 5.1 or 5.2 inches.

The reason for limiting curved OLED to one model may be industry bottlenecks on capacity. Even Samsung may only be capable of handling half of Apple's annual iPhone sales, and that company has to reserve panels for some of its own products, like the Galaxy S7 Edge.

4 Comments

Metriacanthosaurus 880 comments · 8 Years

About 7 years ago

If I ask nicely, will you stop using that hideous mockup? No iPhone will ever look anything like that.

tshapi 372 comments · 13 Years

As they stated last time someone asked that. Do you have a better mock up?

tshapi said:

As they stated last time someone asked that. Do you have a better mock up?

Why is that the metric for whether or not to post hideous mockups of non-never-iPhones?

Marvin 15332 comments · 18 Years

tshapi said:

As they stated last time someone asked that. Do you have a better mock up?

Martin Hajek has a couple of better ones:

There's an older mockup here that looks a bit too Samsung-like:

The camera and speaker have to stay so the display can't go right up to the top and bottom otherwise touch for notifications would swipe over the holes. Plus the parts that sit behind those holes are much bigger than the holes:

All those components above the battery and display would have to be about 1/3 of the size. OLED will just allow Apple to reduce the bezels, they don't have to be eliminated completely and they will get better black levels. They can also add system-controlled contextual controls to the bottom bezel. I doubt this is for a 2017 model. Every year there are reports about Apple skipping to the next major revision but it has always gone through the same cycle. The S models come out with component upgrades and the same chassis. The OLED upgrade will mean a change to the design. The 7 model is fine for an S upgrade, then 2018 OLED, plus another S upgrade in 2019.