Japan Display Inc. said it will begin mass production of organic light-emitting diode displays (OLED) in 2018, aiming to catch up with its Korean rivals amid speculation that Apple may adopt these displays in its future iPhones.
Japan Display already supplies LCD screens to smartphones to AppleBut it faces stiff competition from its South Korean Asian rivals Sharp and LG Display Co Ltd.
"We are going to take advantage of our advanced thin-film transistor technology in the development of OLED displays," Akio Takimoto, head of Japan Display's research center, told reporters on Friday.
The announcements are also featured as Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), Japan Display's largest state-backed shareholder fund and, is in talks to invest in Sharp and merge its display unit with Japan Display, according to some sources.
Press reports say that Apple could adopt OLED technology for its future iPhones In 2018, with LG Display and the decision panel unit of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. likely to be considered as candidates to be vendors. Manufacturers are planning to spend $ 12.8 billion dollars in preparation for the production of OLED displays on the iPhone that would be released in September 2018.
The screens OLEDs do not require backlighting and can therefore be thinner or curved, but its manufacturing costs are for now higher than conventional liquid crystal display panels.
Japan Display formed a government-backed deal in 2012 out of sickle display units from Sony Corp, Toshiba Corp, and Hitachi Ltd.