Micro-LED project doesn’t work out: LG wants money from Apple, according to report

Apple’s decision not to use micro-LED screens initially for the Apple Watch and later for other products will clearly have economic consequences with respect to its important South Korean partner LG Display. According to a report in the country’s electronics magazine The Elec (Summary On Patently Apple, Original Currently offline), Apple suppliers spent three-digit millions of euros (hundreds of billions of won) on building manufacturing capacity, buying patents and transferring equipment that no longer has any value.

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Problems in the supply chain

According to the report, for example, 14 patents in the field of micro-LED technology were acquired by Ultra Display. Capacity was created for the necessary backplane processes, experts were hired to start a micro-LED task force and agreements were made with suppliers who were no longer needed and who had costs of their own and could sue LG Display. According to The Elec, LG Display is said to have demanded compensation from Apple. It is unclear how much money is involved – and whether some of them will also go to LG Display’s suppliers.

It is also unclear whether LG Display has any legal chance of receiving compensation payments. Reportedly, the contract with Apple eventually disappeared, although the company is said to have already made promises. Since LG Display, along with Samsung Display, is one of Apple’s most important suppliers and produces panels for a variety of products, Apple is likely to be interested in not jeopardizing the relationship. The original plan was to replace the OLED screen currently installed in the Apple Watch with a micro-LED screen, which promises good colors with low power consumption. However, Apple apparently no longer saw enough value in it and initially shut down the project.

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Problems in Europe too

The end of micro-LED technology for Apple products also caused supply chain difficulties in Europe. This affected, among others, the supplier AMS-Osram, which also suffered financial losses.

This is why the German-Austrian company should do this 500 employees were laid off, mainly in Malaysia The cost of phasing out micro-LED technology is said to have cost AMS-Osram a total of 700 million euros.

(B.Sc.)