Apple producing new MicroLED screens at top secret US facility
A new report from Bloomberg claims Apple is using a 62,000-square-foot top secret facility in Santa Clara, California to design and produce new MicroLED screens to be used within future Apple products, starting with Apple Watch.
As part of a project internally codenamed T159, Apple will produce small quantities of MicroLED screens that will be brighter, sharper and require less power from the devices battery.
According to the report Lynn Youngs, a long-time Apple employee who has been overseeing projects since the launch of the original iPhone, is leading the development alongside 300 engineers.
The 62,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, the first of its kind for Apple, is located on an otherwise unremarkable street in Santa Clara, California, a 15-minute drive from the Apple Park campus in Cupertino and near a few other unmarked Apple offices. – There, about 300 engineers are designing and producing MicroLED screens for use in future products. The facility also has a special area for the intricate process of “growing” LEDs.
MicroLED screens designed and produced by Apple are reportedly years away from public release, however, it’s believed Apple Watch will be the first product to be introduced with the Apple-designed screen technology.
The California facility is too small for mass-production, but the company wants to keep the proprietary technology away from its partners as long as possible, one of the people says. “We put a lot of money into the facility,” this person says. “It’s big enough to get through the engineering builds [and] lets us keep everything in-house during the development stages.”
Inside Apple's Secret Plan to Develop and Build its Own Screens. Full Story now live, with all of the details on Project T159 — Apple’s effort to develop and build its own MicroLED screens to replace Samsung. https://t.co/qygVIKpLb7 pic.twitter.com/R9B1AZUmWG
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 19, 2018