Samsung is reportedly building a new factory to keep up with demand for OLED screens

June 30, 2017

Samsung is reportedly building a new factory to keep up with demand for OLED screens

Tim Cook iPhone 6 Apple Watch

A new report from Korean outlet ET News says that Samsung subsidiary Samsung Display has begun construction of a new facility in South Korea to keep up with Apple's demand for OLED panels.

ET News says that Samsung already expanded one of its existing plants to hit a production target of 135,000 panels per month, while the new facility should help ramp the number up to 270,000 units in total.

The sizeable $20 billion (£15.4 billion) investment comes as Samsung Display is the only supplier Apple has selected to mass produce the display that will allegedly cover the entire front of its tentatively named "iPhone 8."

Apple has only used liquid crystal (LCD) displays in past iPhones, and is allegedly going to move to organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology for the special, tenth anniversary edition iPhone.

The main advantages of OLED displays come in the form of color vibrancy and power efficiency, but they also allow devices to be physically smaller.

OLED displays don't need to be backlit, as they light up themselves. This also allows to create curved displays, such as the one seen on Samsung's own Galaxy S8 flagship.

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