BOE's Cracking Glass Problem Threatens OLED iPad Supply Plans

Repeated glass breakages at BOE's new OLED factory have persisted for roughly six months, potentially hindering its attempt to win iPad display orders from Apple, The Elec reports.

The Chinese display maker apparently only recently begun Apple's panel qualification process. According to the report, the manufacturing difficulties could either postpone orders or prevent BOE from securing them.

A broken sheet of glass can leave production equipment unavailable for between half a day and a full day as workers remove fragments and check the machinery. That makes the issue disruptive even when most substrates pass through the line without breaking.

Sources cited by the publication warned that two or three breakages among 1,000 substrates could still interfere with mass production. The impact extends beyond the loss of the damaged sheet, because other production cannot proceed through the affected equipment during recovery. Sources said these incidents need to be almost entirely eliminated for continuous operation.

The affected facility is B16 in Chengdu, which houses BOE's 8.6-generation ‌OLED‌ production line. BOE continues to operate two lines there, but has yet to identify what causes the glass to fail.

Earlier reports linked BOE's iPad Air plans to its separate B12 facility in Chongqing, while B16 was associated with its effort to supply ‌OLED‌ MacBook Pro panels. The report from August anticipated the launch of new iPad Air models featuring ‌OLED‌ displays in the first half of 2027, with Samsung Display as the primary panel supplier.

BOE's previous work for Apple has also been interrupted by manufacturing and approval problems. In 2022, Apple reportedly halted production of BOE's iPhone 13 displays after discovering unauthorized changes to their design. Reports in 2023 described light leakage around the Dynamic Island cutouts that constrained supply of iPhone 15 panels. In January, a report said Apple had shifted millions of ‌OLED‌ panel orders for the iPhone to Samsung Display after BOE again encountered production difficulties.