According to reports from China, Samsung Display established a new R&D team dedicated to develop OLED products for Apple. The so-called "A Team" is part of the Giheung Research Institute in Yongin, Korea.
This is an interesting move by SDC. Apple is an extremely important customer for Samsung Display, of course, and up until recently SDC has been the leading supplier of OLED displays for Apple - winning the majority of orders for iPhone AMOLEDs. But now that Apple is starting to adopt OLEDs in IT products (starting with tablets) things are changing.
Industry reports suggest that LG Display is Apple's main supplier of iPad AMOLEDs for the first generation devices, as the company has greater experience with tandem OLED architectures (thanks to its use in automotive displays). Samsung has been struggling to ramp up production of such panels.
Samsung is also feeling pressure from China-based AMOLED producers, which are increasing their production capabilities and starting to win Apple display orders.
It will be interesting to see whether SDC develops technologies specifically for Apple, or whether they simply want to accelerate their OLED R&D for all their customers, including Samsung itself. Apple is said to be aiming to replace all of its IT displays to OLEDs over the next few years - including tablets, laptops, and monitors. This will create a massive opportunity for display makers.
Apple itself is developing its own OLED related technology, and for example pioneered the adoption of LTPO backplanes, as the company seeks to differentiate its product with leading technology and to better to control its supply chain. It will be interesting to see how this move by Samsung plays out.
