Apple to tap Chinese tech for advanced iPhone screens

Apple is in the final stages of certifying advanced screens from Chinese display maker BOE Technology Group for its iPhones, as it attempts to reduce reliance on Samsung Electronics, the Nikkei reported on Wednesday.

Apple will decide by the end of this year whether to take BOE on as a supplier of organic light-emitting displays (OLED), the Japanese business daily reported, citing sources.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The iPhone maker is “aggressively testing” BOE’s flexible OLED, raising the possibility that Apple could for the first time source this advanced display technology from China, according to the report.

BOE Display, founded in 1993 in Beijing China, is one of the world’s leading display maker, producing both LCDs and OLEDs. BOE also produces LCD backlighting units and solar panels.

BOE has been producing small glass-based OLEDs for some time, but the company’s focus is currently in flexible and foldable OLEDs. In October 2017 BOE started to produce flexible OLED displays at its first flexible OLED line, the Chengdu B7 6-Gen fab. The annual capacity of the B7 line, when complete and at 100% yields, will be 45,000 monthly 6-Gen substrates, or about 90 million smartphone OLEDs