Sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to get it right.
Per DigiTimes, Apple supplier BOE is still struggling to expand on orders for its OLED displays given yield issues.
Despite investing in panel research and development, BOE has continually struggled with yield rate problems, particularly for OLED panels for the iPhone 15 basic model. The panels were conditionally approved for mass production by Apple in March 2023, but in September the supplier failed to get formal approval and Apple ended up dropping the order.
BOE was supposed to be among the suppliers of OLED displays for both the standard iPhone as well as the larger iPhone 15 Plus, but this fell through when the company experienced problems with light leakage around the portion of the OLED display where the pill and hole cutouts secure the space necessary for the TrueDepth camera and Face ID, where the Dynamic Island is located.
Initial speculations suggested that BOE might supply as many as 5 million iPhone 15 panels this year. Instead, due to both delays and poor yield rates, the expected volume is rumored to have been reduced to 2 to 3 million panels. The light leakage issue is also harder to avoid on a larger panel, and it’s now considered very unlikely that BOE will get production approval for the iPhone 15 Plus panels in 2023. Its yield rate is still estimated to be around only 30 percent.
Samsung Display has stepped in as the primary display provider for the entire iPhone 15 line and held a 91 percent market share in these kinds of panels from June to August 2023.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.