Apple Approves Production of OLED Panels for Foldable iPhone

Samsung Display has received Apple's approval to begin module production of OLED panels for Apple's first foldable iPhone, according to a report today from TheElec.

Citing industry sources, the report says Samsung Display has started operating part of its back-end production lines in Vietnam to fulfill an initial order of around three million panels scheduled for delivery this year. Module production approval requires a supplier to demonstrate final assembly quality and mass-production stability, and Apple's threshold is reportedly a yield rate of at least 70%. Samsung Display is said to have passed that bar after achieving final yields above 80%.

Samsung Display is believed to be the exclusive supplier of OLED panels for the foldable iPhone under a three-year agreement, meaning Apple will not source foldable OLED panels from any other display maker during that period. Back-end processing, which includes adding driver circuits, flexible printed circuit boards, and protective components before final inspection and shipment, is being handled at Samsung Display's Vietnam facility. That site has around 80 production lines in total, with roughly 50 currently active, leaving capacity to spare given the relatively modest three million unit order.

The panels are expected to use Color Filter on Encapsulation (CoE) technology, which removes the polarizer and forms a color filter directly on top of the encapsulation layer, along with Samsung Display's newest M16 OLED material set. The M16 stack is said to bring improvements to brightness, color performance, lifespan, and power efficiency over prior generations.

Apple's foldable iPhone is rumored to feature a 7.8-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch cover display, along with Touch ID instead of Face ID, an A20 chip, and Apple's C2 modem, with pricing expected to start around $2,000.