Apple Reportedly Investing Over $300M in New Taiwanese Factory to Produce Mini-LED and Micro-LED Displays

Apple plans to invest around NT$10 billion (US$334 million) towards the opening of a new factory at the Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan, according to a Chinese report in the Economic Daily News. English coverage is available at Focus Taiwan.

mac ipad pro side by side
The report claims that Apple will use the factory to produce Mini-LED and Micro-LED displays for future devices, in partnership with Taiwan-based suppliers Epistar and AU Optronics. In March, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple is planning at least six Mini-LED products for release by the end of 2021, including 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, an iMac Pro, a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, a 10.2-inch iPad, and a 7.9-inch ‌iPad‌ mini.

Kuo has previously said that Mini-LED backlit displays will allow for thinner and lighter product designs, while offering many of the same benefits of OLED displays used on the latest iPhones, including high contrast and dynamic range.

Apple already has a Mini-LED and Micro-LED research and development facility at the same research park, built in 2014.

Popular Stories

Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature 1

Apple to Make More Foldable iPhones Than Expected

Tuesday December 9, 2025 9:59 am PST by
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports. In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
iOS 26

15 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.2

Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below. Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
iPhone 14 Pro Dynamic Island

iPhone 18 Pro Leak Adds New Evidence for Under-Display Face ID

Monday December 8, 2025 4:54 am PST by
Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker. According to "Smart Pikachu," a Weibo account that has previously shared accurate supply-chain details on Chinese Android hardware, Apple is testing the special glass as a way to let the TrueDepth...
iOS 26

Apple Seeds Second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Monday December 8, 2025 10:18 am PST by
Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found. Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
Google maps feaure

Google Maps Quietly Added This Long-Overdue Feature for Drivers

Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you. Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Johny Srouji

Apple's Chipmaking Chief Johny Srouji Responds to Report About Him Potentially Leaving

Monday December 8, 2025 9:23 am PST by
Apple's chipmaking chief Johny Srouji has reportedly indicated that he plans to continue working for the company for the foreseeable future. "I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon," said Srouji, in a memo obtained by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Here is Srouji's full memo, as shared by Bloomberg:I know you've been reading all kind of rumors and...
iPhone 17 Pro Cosmic Orange

10 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's iPhone 18 Pro

Monday December 1, 2025 2:40 am PST by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. One thing worth...
google pixel 10

Switching Between iPhone and Android Will Get Easier With New Apple and Google Collaboration

Monday December 8, 2025 11:10 am PST by
Apple and Google are teaming up to make it easier for users to switch between iPhone and Android smartphones, according to 9to5Google. There is a new Android Canary build available today that simplifies data transfer between two smartphones, and Apple is going to implement the functionality in an upcoming iOS 26 beta. Apple already has a Move to iOS app for transferring data from an Android...
Apple Fitness Plus expansion hero

Apple Fitness+ Coming to 28 New Regions With Digital Voice Dubbing

Monday December 8, 2025 6:19 am PST by
Apple today announced that Fitness+ is expanding to 28 new markets on December 15 in the service's largest international rollout since launch, accompanied by new language dubbing and a K-Pop music genre. Apple Fitness+ will become available in Chile, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan, and additional regions on December 15, with Japan scheduled to follow early next year....
Johny Srouji

Apple Chip Chief Johny Srouji Could Be Next to Go as Exodus Continues

Sunday December 7, 2025 10:41 am PST by
Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji could be the next leading executive to leave the company amid an alarming exodus of leading employees, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. Srouji apparently recently told CEO Tim Cook that he is "seriously considering leaving" in the near future. He intends to join another company if he departs. Srouji leads Apple's chip design ...

Top Rated Comments

sublunar Avatar
73 months ago

care to elaborate?
OLED's downfall is in screen burn in. Phones don't really suffer from this as the small panels generally aren't on for hours at a time. TVs and monitors can suffer when they are on for hours at a time with on screen graphics in the same place all the time - examples include the digital on screen graphics such as the CNN logo or Mac toolbar elements which can relatively quickly burn into the screen.

The cost of OLED panels are prohibitive.

And the O in OLED is organic - which means they will decay over time.

I found a nice primer ('https://medium.com/hd-pro/understanding-oled-qled-mini-led-microled-dont-be-misled-30520b686fcb') out there to bring you up to speed with everything else.

This is why Apple are moving direct to mini LED over OLED with an eye on micro LED when that drops in price.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lunarworks Avatar
73 months ago

OLED was always flawed tech from the very start. I'm trying to avoid it as much as I can. MicroLED is where the future is for now.
So whilst we wait for that I'll take miniLED over OLED any day.
Yup. OLED is really cool tech with major advantages over LCD, but the burn-in is an unavoidable problem. MicroLED has all the advantages of OLED without the burn-in, and I can't wait for it to reach the mass market.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Aston441 Avatar
73 months ago

Isn't OLED better than miniLED? Why aren't they investing in OLED
OLED is, always has been, and always will be garbage. You've been captured by marketing. You can still break free!
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fokmik Avatar
73 months ago
mini-led is nothing compared to the micro-led and how hard is to get those pixels down in dimensions to fit even an imac or macbook
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sublunar Avatar
73 months ago
Interesting how the iMac Pro is mentioned but none of the non-Pro iMacs are mentioned (not even the supposedly forthcoming 23" panel) and yet the basic iPad and iPad mini are mentioned.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sublunar Avatar
73 months ago

Seems like they're standing up new tech for the display, so its just going to be in a few (somewhat smaller) items at first. The iMacs might get it down the line.
My thinking here is that the forthcoming (already complete) iMac update might be enough to see it through till October 2021. Suggests a very light update indeed - akin to the treatment that the Mac mini got perhaps?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)