Samsung To Cut The Cord, End LCD Panel Supply Relationship With Apple

Samsung told The Korea Times on Monday that it will end its LCD panel supply relationship with Apple as of next year. That’s according to a “senior Samsung source” who declined to be identified, citing insufficient margins owing to Apple’s supply pricing strategy. Samsung’s role in Apple’s LCD supply chain has dwindled, with the Korean company reportedly cut out of iPad mini production, but Samsung’s decision to pull the plug may have been a pre-emptive strike by the parts manufacturer owing to a declining relationship between the two.

Samsung is said to be fielding more orders from its consumer electronics division, as well as from Apple competitor Amazon, in volumes that could make up for the loss of Apple as an LCD component customer. Apple was Samsung’s top customer according to NPD DisplaySearch for the first half of the year, but Apple began cutting its LCD orders back in September and was reportedly shifting order volumes to LG and Sharp, as ongoing patent disputes worsened.

Pricing on Apple’s latest iPad display had caused Samsung to earn only half as much per pixel on its production compared to previous models, so narrowing margins clearly had an impact on the decision, but this also can’t help but look like a case of Samsung ending a relationship that was already on the rocks to begin with. Apple was already clearly trying to reduce its reliance on its rival’s component supplier arm, as indicated by changes to the way it designs its processor andsources RAM and NAND flash chips, but this may accelerate Apple’s intended timeline.

Apple is a massive customer of LCD panels, and is set to become an even more demanding customer with the impending probable launch of the iPad mini. Earlier, there were concerns about whether or not Samsung’s display supplier competition could produce adequate volumes to satisfy its needs, butSharp seems to have recently gotten its act together, and others like Sony have reportedly joined Apple’s stable of potential supply sources.

The question will be whether or not the timeline Samsung gave of next year will give Apple enough time to stabilize its alternate source. Still, it looks like both have been preparing for this moment for a while, so we could see each walk away relatively unscathed.

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Intel to focus on Ultrabooks, Windows 8 at forum

ntel will put its large spotlight on Ultrabook laptops and Windows 8, among other technologies, at its annual developer conference next week.

In a keynote on September 14, Mooly Eden, general manager of the PC client group at Intel, will describe the "transformation of the PC" being driven by Ultrabooks at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), according to an overview of the forum CNET received from Intel today. IDF begins next Tuesday. 

Lenovo's U300s Ultrabook is extremely thin but boasts relatively long battery life.

(Credit: Lenovo)

Ultrabooks are very light, very thin Windows laptops that compete with the MacBook Air. The core hardware includes Intel second-generation "Sandy Bridge" processors and solid-state drives or, in some cases, hybrid hard disk drives. Meant to emulate tablets in some respects, Ultrabooks are also designed to have instant-on capability and relatively long battery life despite their compact size .

Greg Welch, who heads Intel's Ultrabook group, is expected to lead a session titled "PC Client Platform Innovation," which covers the "shift to smaller form factor PCs which drive new consumer innovations" and "Intel's vision for...this new class of device," according to Intel's IDF Technical Session Catalog abstract.

Another Ultrabook-related session on September 13 states that "delivering [a] substantial increase in battery life mandates a brand new approach to power management in a mobile PC." Another session is entitled "Next Generation Display Technology for Ultrabook," hosted by both Intel and South Korea-based LG.

Windows 8, Microsoft's next major operating system, is also slated to received plenty of attention. A session on September 14 titled "Microsoft Windows 8 on Intel Architecture" will "provide a glimpse into the upcoming release of Microsoft's next operating system release Windows 8," according to an abstract. That session will be led by both an Intel engineer and Microsoft product managers.

And a Q&A session titled "Intel and Microsoft Windows 8" will take place on September 15.

Other sessions will include "Thunderbolt Technology Tutorial: Enabling New and Exciting Products," covering the new connection technology currently being used on Apple's MacBooks; "SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0): Ecosystem and Emerging Device Classes," which covers the latest generation of USB technology; and "Technology Insight: Intel Next Generation Microarchitecture Codename Ivy Bridge," which discusses Intel's next generation of processors due next year.

Other topics in focus will include cloud computing and advances in such areas as "extreme-scale computing, contextual awareness, and near-threshold circuit topologies that dramatically reduce energy consumption."

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