Apple is counting on the iPhone 6 to spark excitement in a market looking for innovations. Part of the company's recipe for success is a glass plant in Arizona with new equipment that will give its iPhones and iPads tough, sapphire glass displays.
Following news that Apple is in a hurry to make its glass factory in Arizona operational this month, there are rumors that GT Advanced Technologies, which partnered with Apple in November, has acquired enough equipment to produce between 103 million and 200 million sapphire displays.
GT Advanced confirmed a prepayment from Apple amounting to $578 million that could be used to acquire sapphire supply. This estimate is not new, but actually consistent with the earlier estimates reported by DigiTimes.
"US$578 million can be used to procure 1,930-2,890 sapphire growing furnaces for a monthly production of 5.28-7.90 million mm of 2-inch-equivalent sapphire ingots," Digitimes Research indicated.
"Such a volume of sapphire ingots could be used to make screen covers for 33.79-50.56 million 5-inch iPhones a year, accounting for 17.8-26.6% of the estimated 190 million iPhones to be shipped in 2014," the report stated.
Apple-centric blog 9to5Mac is said to have worked with analyst Matt Margolis to shed more light on rumors that sapphire glass is coming to more iDevices soon.
"The proof that GT Advanced is preparing to manufacture sapphire for displays comes from import/export records," reported 9to5Mac."The machines will allow GT Advanced to ensure that the sapphire crystal displays meet high-quality standards. These machines are specific for display-grade components, not small pieces of sapphire that could be used for Home buttons or cameras. The machines are large and can process several slabs of sapphire crystal screen covers simultaneously."
The shipment history revealed that GT Advanced ordered components from Intego Sirius Sapphire Display Inspection Tool. Margolis concluded based on his research that GT Advanced now has 518 units of the sapphire testing tools with 420 more of the same machine expected to be delivered. The company is also expected to get several other machines specifically for sapphire screen production.
"Lowering manufacturing and fabrication costs of sapphire is a key driver for accelerating the adoption of high volume Solid State Lighting (SSL) applications such as residential LED lighting, and new markets such as cover screens for touch screen devices. GT is partnering with Intego GmbH to develop a series of automated sapphire inspection tools that will increase the yield of high quality sapphire material from each boule and ensure that only high quality material enters the value stream," GT's website read.
GT Advanced has an exclusive deal to produce sapphire screens for Apple based on a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Two different versions of the iPhone 6 are rumored to be in production. One will have a 4.5-inch display, while a bigger version will feature a 5-inch screen. There have also been reports that Apple might get rid of the colorful design of the 5C and use a metal casing similar to that of the 5S instead. Curved screens are allegedly out of the picture now.
