Apple would encounter production problems significant enough to be forced to postpone the launch of an Apple Watch with MicroLED technology. Initially, a first model was to see the light of day by 2025.
We’ve been talking about it for months, Apple is working on an Apple Watch with MicroLED display technology. Unfortunately, we would have to keep talking about it for a long time before we actually find out about this model. In any case, this is what this week suggests The Electric. According to the Korean media, Apple and its subcontractors would encounter production problems that were bothersome enough to be forced to postpone the launch of a first model of Apple Watch equipped with a MicroLED panel for a year.
As a reminder, Apple’s connected watches are ” content» for the moment of OLED screens, and this project of transition to MicroLED technology has been the subject of persistent rumors for more than a year. Apple would also have been working on this technology internally since 2018. At the very beginning of the year, a first estimate reported a possible launch of MicroLED on the Apple Watch Ultra cuvée 2024… finally, the year 2025 had been mentioned by the following. If we are to believe The Electricwe should now rather count on 2026.
The MicroLED on the Apple Watch: an Arlesian?
In a rather diffuse way, we discover that the process of production of MicroLED screens for the Apple Watch would suffer from “technological constraintsFrom which LG Display (main if not only supplier of Apple for the moment) would not have yet succeeded in emancipating itself completely. Another pitfall, inherent in the use of relatively new technologies: the production costs of MicroLED screens would be high, very high even, the fault of a yield that is still too low.
These low yields would be due, at least in part, to delicate production and complex processes often resulting in units that do not comply with standards… and which therefore cannot be used for the purpose originally intended. It is then necessary tofix“, and, if LG would have found a solution to do so, the latter would be very expensive to put in place. This production complexity is, however, attributable to the very nature of MicroLED technology, which involves the positioning of thousands of microscopic light-emitting diodes side by side.
In an attempt to overcome these difficulties, LG has obviously started to buy patents (14 of which belong to American firms). According toThe Electricthese patents would allow in particular a more reliable and more precise positioning of the chips, which will eventually make it possible to obtain higher yields.
Logically, the Apple Watch will in any case be the first to benefit from a MicroLED panel… before this display technology is subsequently extended to other models.
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