Apple hands iPad screen contract to rival Samsung
Sharp not up to scratch in churning out its own design
Apple has handed the manufacturing deal for iPad screens to its patent spat rival – Samsung – after LG Display and Sharp failed to deliver on the ultra-high-res screens needed for the new tablet.
The new iPad's 3.1 million pixel screen is its biggest selling point. But it seems as if Samsung is the only company capable of getting it made on time and to standard. IHS (formerly iSuppli) senior analyst Vinita Jakhanwal told Bloomberg that Samsung is currently is the sole vendor of the display:
The display specifications on the new iPad are very demanding in terms of the very high resolution. Achieving this high resolution without compromising on the power consumption and brightness and maintaining Apple’s quality standards are supposedly proving to be a challenge for LG Display and Sharp.
As analysed by The Reg here, a special structure involving a 3 micrometer layer of photo-definable acrylic resin is required to produce the iPad 3 screen – a dreamy super high resolution 2048 × 1536, 264 ppi affair that has four times the number of pixels of the iPad 2. The technology design patent for the resin layer which enables the "super high aperture" display is held by Sharp, but it seems that the inventors don't have the manufacturing muscle to make it to Apple's specifications.
But Samsung is already embedded deep within quite a bit of Apple kit. Samsung already holds the contract for the manufacture of several of Apple's most prestigious components, specifically the dual-core A5 chips in the iPhone 4S and the dual-core A5X chips in the new iPad. Samsung's Galaxy Tab is one of the Apple's few rivals in the high-end of the tablet market, and the two compete fiercely in the smartphone market, while also being engaged in global disputes over technology patents. ®
COMMENTS
Re: And this would be why Apple's suddenly backing down on Android?
No
Samsung have been making apple kit for years, even when they've been suing the pants off each other
On the one hand, the fact that they can be in court and working together at the same time can be explained by the fact that large corporations are not single, consistent entities with personalities, but complex messes of different departments who only have the company logo over the door and the crappy emails from the executives in common.
But a small part of me, (the part with a fondness for tin foil head wear) wonders if they don't have an agreement to keep engaging in these patent disputes just to get headlines and publicity...
"super high aperture"
So that's like a regular high aperture with its underpants on the outside then, yes?
Re: "super high aperture"
f400 or, more properly, f/400 would in fact be an extremely small aperture.
The largest commercially-made lens aperture was, I believe, f/0.95 - from Canon, Voigtländer and also Leica.
f/400 is venturing into pinhole territory...
Re: Optional
Depends.
If Samsung are willing lose sales worth potentially hundreds of millions of dollars. Most companies would not want to lose a customer the size of Apple even if they are involved in legal action.
