San Francisco: Apple has signed a contract with Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology (SMT), which could lead to the tech giant using hybrid OLED displays in the iPad Pro by 2024.
According to AppleInsider, the display on the iPad and iPad Pro is a key component of the user experience, so vendor changes could indicate upcoming design modifications. In the event of one supply chain disruption, Apple could be gearing up for a major upgrade to the iPad.
Taiwan SMT will become the supplier managing SMT processes for mini LED backlights for the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro lines, according to a DigiTimes report.
If accurate, it would be Taiwan SMT’s first time in Apple’s supplier ecosystem, the report said.
Additionally, the report claims that Apple is helping to expand its production lines using special hardware to lay down mini LEDs.
The addition of Taiwan SMT could be important for Apple as it could allow the company to improve its mini LED based hardware until it can adopt hybrid OLED.
Initially, it could be a much thinner display, which could make the iPad Pro even thinner, but there are other applications on the way.