Near-unscratchable screens that are expected to be one of the biggest selling points of the iPhone 6 when Apple Inc unveils the latest model in Sept. are to go into large-scale production this month.
To create industrial quantities of man-made sapphire, the material already used to cover the fingerprint-sensing home button and camera lens on its phones, Apple has a US$578m deal with manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies Inc, which has built a plant powered by renewable energy in Mesa, Arizona.
The iPhone 6 is set to make its first public appearance on Sept. 9. Until now Apple has relied on toughened glass which can be easily shattered and marked. However, screens already demonstrated by GT can withstand scratches from concrete. Its thin sapphire layers are flexible, potentially improving resistance to knocks and falls.
Apple is said to be preparing two new iPhone models, both of which are to have larger screens than their predecessors. The biggest is to measure 5.5 inches corner to corner, while the smaller iPhone is to have a 4.7-inch screen.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has ordered an initial batch of between 70 million and 80 million handsets, its biggest first run production, to be sent out from factory gates in time for Christmas and the New Year.
GT chief executive Thomas Gutierrez told investors on a call this month: “The build-out of our Arizona facility, which has involved taking a 1.4 million square foot [130,000 m2] facility from a shell to a functional structure and the installation of over 1 million square feet of sapphire growth and fabrication equipment, is nearly complete and we are commencing the transition to volume production.”
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is expected to record significant sequential revenue growth in the second half of the year, as it ramps up production of the iPhone 6, head of Taiwan research at Morgan Stanley Jasmine Lu (呂智穎) said.
“Even if the iPhone is delayed, as the market is speculating, we think the strong production cycle will last into the first half of 2015, given the lack of robust competition,” Lu wrote in a note to clients, dated Thursday last week.
Lu forecast a 5 percent increase in Hon Hai’s revenue for this quarter and a 55 percent jump for next quarter, with earnings per share of NT$2.41 and NT$3.75, respectively.
Additional reporting by CNA
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts