Malcolm Owen
Orders for Apple's MacBook Pro and iPad Pro are believed to be behind Samsung Display investing another $3.1 billion into its OLED display panel fabrication plant.
Samsung Display is a major supplier to Apple, already creating screens for both the iPhone and iPad lines. Now according to DSCC's Ross Young, Samsung's investment in the fab is also for 14-inch and 16-inch OLED MacBook Pros, destined for a 2026 release.
To help bolster its capabilities in production, the company intends to throw billions of dollars at its Asan, South Korea facility.
The investment will cost Samsung some 4.1 trillion won ($3.14 billion) until 2026, according to the country's trade ministry on Tuesday, reports Reuters.
The Asan facility investment will go towards making advanced OLED display panels, used in tablets and computers, the ministry said. While not specifically named, this would mean Apple's future iPad could benefit.
Various supply chain reports claim that an iPad Pro model due in 2024 with an OLED screen could be a more costly to produce iteration. It is thought that an 11-inch iPad Pro with an OLED display could be 80% more expensive than the current generation, with a $1,500 starting price.
There is apparently a lot of technical risk involved in creating OLED screens for the MacBook Pro. Ross claims that this is because it requires a "new backplane approach and frontplane approach," which is intended to lower costs and improve performance.
Samsung's investment is part of a wider previously-announced scheme from Samsung Electronics, which will see its companies invest 60.1 trillion won into regions outside of Seoul over the next ten years.
Republished October 11, 1:58 PM ET: Young has reiterated this claim in a Bloomberg web conference. No other new information about it was provided.
Marko Zivkovic
Andrew Orr
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8 Comments
Seems like OLED on Apple devices is like fusion energy. Always a few years off into the future.
My guess is it never gets OLED and they'll end up adopting some yet to be seen or next generation display technology.
Big dog iMac screens…
This seems very slow considering OLED laptops have been a thing for quite a while now. I know Apple’s requirements are a lot higher than current offerings, but still. The iPhone OLED can already hit 2000 nits. Is it that hard to scale these to laptop sizes? At this rate micro LED won’t be a thing this decade. Hopefully they can further improve mini LED in the meantime.
Apple is not satisfied with the inherit weaknesses of OLED, burnout, longevity and relative low brightness, Samsung, LG, Chinese, and some Japanese companies are happy to sell you the current generation, but Apple wants something better and Apple doesn’t want to just settle for the status quo. (Ouch! and it will cost more) research and development cost for the higher standard.
Hint: can’t leave Apple totally off the hook hopefully, Apple in the future will think about developing some of that stuff onshore in the USA, at one time America used to do that type of stuff.