Taiwan Economic News today is reporting that Apple has taken on Sharp as a second manufacturing partner to produce LCD screens for the next-gen iPad 3, possibly replacing Samsung.
Also, Japan’s Sharp, which has worked with Apple on a joint venture and set up a new production line specifically for the partner, is expected to squeeze Samsung out of Apple’s display panel supplier list by joining the iPad 3 supply chain.
LG Display will remain the primary supplier of LCD screens for the iPad 3, which sources say will be released in early 2012.
The report also claims that component suppliers for the device will make delivery of parts in small quantities in October, which matches up with a recent report from the Wall Street Journal that said Apple was partaking in a trial production run for the iPad 3 in October.
Although LG was originally the sole supplier of screens for the iPad 2, Samsung was brought on reportedly after early models exhibited light leak problems. Samsung’s output of iPad screens eventually grew to outpace LG’s.
One of the reasons for Apple’s partnership with Sharp could be because Sharp is the only company in the world who previously produced high-resolution QXGA screens—the 2048×1536 screen rumored to go in the iPad 3—on a mass scale.
