BOE's Cracking Glass Problem Threatens OLED iPad Supply Plans

What happened

Repeated glass breakages at BOE's new OLED factory have persisted for roughly six months, potentially hindering its attempt to win iPad display orders from Apple, The Elec reports. Sources cited by the publication warned that two or three breakages among 1,000 substrates could still interfere with mass production. Apple is a software and consumer electronics company based in Cupertino.

The impact extends beyond the loss of the damaged sheet, because other production cannot proceed through the affected equipment during recovery. The Chinese display maker apparently only recently begun Apple's panel qualification process.

A broken sheet of glass can leave production equipment unavailable for between half a day and a full day as workers remove fragments and check the machinery. That makes the issue disruptive even when most substrates pass through the line without breaking.