A new supply chain report says that mass production of iPhone 15 displays has started today, after Apple gave approval to Samsung Display.
The same report also indicates that producing the periscope lens for the iPhone 15 Pro Max is proving harder than expected, with yield rates below expectations …
From prototyping to mass production
While Apple is a notoriously secretive company when it comes to the product development process, what happens beyond the prototyping stage follows industry norms. Specifically, the four stages between a signed-off design prototype, and the finished product:
- EVT (Engineering Validation Test)
- DVT (Design Validation Test)
- PVT (Product Validation Test)
- Mass production
EVT is when the engineering team ensures that what the design team came up with is practical to produce, and works as expected. Around 50 prototypes are created, and it’s expected that this will reveal problems with the production process that require modifications to the design. Once those design changes have been made, it gets handed back to the engineering team for another EVT round, with another 50 or so devices. There are as many EVT rounds as needed to reach a point where the team is satisfied that it is practical to manufacture, hence EVT 1, EVT 2, and so on.
DVT is the process of checking that the design is practical to manufacture at volume. There may be designs that can be manufactured in small volumes, but lead to problems when attempting to transition to an assembly-line process. Again, there may be multiple DVT rounds before a final design, which is then submitted for regulatory approval.
PVT is effectively the first stage of mass production, with around 10% of initial product volumes made – but with a scheduled pause to ensure that there’s time to correct any further problems identified. This is typically the point at which any yield problems show up: the percentage of products making it through quality control.
Mass production is the final stage, in which suppliers are running at full capacity.
Mass production of iPhone 15 displays
The Elec reports that Apple has now signed off on the final PVT stage for all four iPhone 15 displays, giving Samsung the go-ahead to move into the full mass production stage today.
It notes that of the three planned suppliers for iPhone 15 screens, Samsung is so far the only one to have begun mass production. LG has been given conditional approval – meaning it has to make one or more improvements before starting mass production – but is expected to meet these conditions soon.
Chinese display supplier BOE is still said to be running well behind. We reported back in March that it was struggling with the cutouts for the Dynamic Island, and Apple had pulled orders for now.
Earlier this month, we learned that BOE was having problems with the cutout during initial production runs – specifically light leakage around the slot. Low and inconsistent yields meant that the company appeared unlikely to be able to move to mass production.
Korean site The Elec has now reported that Apple has pulled BOE’s iPhone 15 display orders for now, with Samsung picking up the slack.
The latest report says that BOE will not produce any of the displays for the initial launch of the iPhone 15 lineup, and probably won’t receive any orders until next year. The company is also said to be struggling to make the displays without infringing on Samsung patents and is seeking to have several of these declared invalid.
Problem with the periscope lens
The same piece says that manufacturing problems have been found with the periscope lens module for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which uses a Sony sensor within an LG Innotek module. Yield rates are said to be below expectations.
The production yield of Folded Zoom for Pro Max models and Actuator for Folded Zoom, which Sony’s image sensor, LG Innotek, will supply for the first time this year, is below expectations.
The periscope lens uses a prism to bend the light by 90 degrees, so that most lens elements sit vertically within the iPhone casing. This allows for a longer telephoto lens without it having to protrude even further from the case. The periscope lens is expected to offer somewhere in the 5x to 10x optical zoom range, compared to the maximum 3x range of the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
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