Apple is said to be driving the development of various innovative display technologies. For example, they are working on the development of a market-ready micro OLED panel. These displays are applied directly to the chip waver. Micro-OLED panels can therefore be made ultra-thin and light and are also significantly more energy-efficient. However, these high-end panels should not be used in the iPhone of the future, Apple is planning to use them in AR glasses, to report currently Japanese business media.
Apple is working with TSMC in a secret factory in Taiwan to develop micro-OLED technology, it said, citing sources involved in the work.
Years until the market launch
At the moment, smartphone manufacturers are moving their panels bigger and bigger, but Apple needs a manufacturer that understands extremely small things
Confidante in Taiwan quoted. Indeed, TSMC is currently the world champion in miniaturization in the semiconductor field. Apple procures all A-Series processors and also the M1 chips from TSMC, where they are manufactured in a 5nm process, which is currently hardly achieved by any other manufacturer in the sizes required by Apple.
However, TSMC will still need a while for the micro-OLEDs in glasses: A market launch is not very likely before 2023.
Meanwhile, work on MicroLED displays is to continue in the secret research factory in the Longtan Science Park in Taiwan. These differ fundamentally from micro-OLEDs, they are simply shrunk LED pixels that no longer require backlighting. It is not known when they will be used in which Apple product.
