March 15, 2024 – According to a recent report from South Korean media outlet ETNews, Apple’s upcoming OLED iPad Pro will be exclusively supplied with display driver chips (DDI) by Samsung.
Typically known for pursuing a diversified supply chain strategy, Apple’s decision to rely on a single supplier for such a key component is somewhat unusual. Previous reports had indicated that the initial production run of the OLED iPad Pro would be 8.5 million units, with Samsung supplying 4 million 11-inch models and LG supplying 4.5 million 12.9-inch models.
Currently, Samsung holds the top spot in the DDI market, with a market share of 29.7% as of the third quarter of last year.
For those unfamiliar, a display driver chip is an integrated circuit that powers display technologies such as TFT LCDs and PDPs. Each pixel in a display is composed of three sub-pixels – red, green, and blue (RGB) – and each sub-pixel is controlled by a transistor. The display driver chip is responsible for managing these transistors.
The chip consists of two main components: the gate driver and the source driver. The gate driver controls the gates of the sub-pixels, essentially acting as a switch, while the source driver adjusts the image signals for each sub-pixel to produce color variations.
With Samsung’s dominance in the DDI market and Apple’s reliance on OLED technology for its premium iPad Pro line, the partnership between the two tech giants looks set to strengthen further.
