Apple Reportedly Requested Samsung to Use More Advanced Production Method for iPhone 14 Pro Displays

According to a new report, Apple requested that SAMSUNG use a more advanced production method that would protect the surrounding display from damage and loss of image quality, in order to create the pill-shaped cutout at the top of the phone.

Unlike other phones, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have a cutout directly within the display, unlike other phones, which have a notch on the top of the phone. According to the report, Apple asked SAMSUNG to use additional equipment to create a cutout in its high-end iPhone displays.

To create the pill-shaped cutout within the display, the pill-shaped hole needs to be drilled directly into the panel, which means the surrounding panels could get damaged and exposed to oxygen. The report says that a dam was built to separate the pill-shaped cutout from the rest of the screen. There is a machine-translation of the report.

This is because of the first hole display applied to the iPhone 14 Pro lineup. To make a hole for the front camera lens, etc, at the top of the OLED screen, a hole must be drilled in the post-process (module process). If the thin film encapsulation is damaged, the OLED is exposed to moisture and oxygen, and the life span of the product is drastically shortened.

For this reason, Samsung Display is known to have used inkjet equipment to build a dam that separates the hole from the rest of the area after making thin film encapsulation and touch electrodes in the iPhone 14 Pro lineup OLED, and to flatten areas with uneven heights. Samsung Display was able to carry out this process using a laser rather than inkjet equipment, but it is said that Apple preferred the inkjet method.

Those with cutouts are examples of displays produced by the company. The front-facing camera is found in the company's own line of smartphones.

According to the Elec, the same method was used for the batches of displays for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The lower-end models of next year's iPhone lineup are rumored to have the same pill-shaped cutout for Dynamic Island as the iPhone 14 Pro, but they don't feature the same display notch.