An Additional Supplier May Leave the MicroLED Apple Watch Ultra Project

We have been long hearing about a mciroLED Apple Watch Ultra. There have been several rumors and reports lately. As of now, we have received some fresh details. According to the CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants, Ross Young, the microLED Apple Watch Ultra project may have lost another important supplier.

Manufacturing equipment firm Kulicke & Soffa announced in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that one of its “strategic customers” had abandoned a project pertaining to the “advanced display” sector.

The Company has been working with one of its strategic clients (the “Customer”) to support the development and potential mass production of specific advanced display technologies (the “Project”), which was formerly known as Project W. The Customer has notified the Company that it has canceled the Project as part of its strategic evaluation of its business.

According to Ross Young, the ‘Project W’ refers to the microLED Apple Watch. The corporation stated that it anticipates paying up to $130 million in costs as a result of ending project-related operations. On the other hand, a “next generation LED die transfer” system for microLED and miniLED displays is advertised on Kulicke & Soffa’s website. Reportedly, it offers “an extraordinary transfer rate at high accuracy.”

In addition to this, we recently learned that AMS-Osram (one of Apple suppliers) revealed that it will revise its microLED strategy. The company mentioned that this decision is a need of the hour since an upcoming project has been cancelled. According to Young, this is about the microLED Apple Watch. From this information, it is now clear that there are two major companies that are no longer a part of this project.

According to Ross Young and Ming-Chi Kuo, for time being Apple has cancelled the microLED Apple Watch project. However, Mark Gurman and DigiTimes claim that the company is looking for other potential suppliers. We don’t know about the exact scenario but it appears like that a microLED Apple Watch Ultra is several years away from becoming a reality.