According to PCMag , Apple is reportedly monitoring Chinese display companies Lens Technology and Biel Crystal for allegedly falsifying reports on the number of defective screens. Specifically, they claimed that 30% of iPhone screens were once thrown away due to defects, costing Apple hundreds of millions of dollars. But after Apple created a new QR system etched into the glass, this defect rate dropped to 10%.
QR codes help significantly reduce the number of defective iPhone screens from Chinese partners
There are actually two QR codes on every iPhone screen, and they're added in different places at different stages of production. The report says there's no consistency in the size of the codes, with one measuring 0.2mm. The second is larger, about the size of a "crayon tip." Apple is said to have spent millions of dollars in 2020 adding QR codes to the manufacturing process and then scanning the finished screen for them at the end of production.
The smaller QR code is a matrix of 625 laser-embedded dots that are not in the same place on every iPhone, the sources said. By using new scanning techniques that use special microlenses and pair them with a ring light, Apple can avoid etching the code too deeply into the glass, which would compromise its reliability.
Apple continues to source raw glass from Corning, a company it has invested in on a regular basis. But that raw material is sent to Lens Technology and Biel Crystal for shaping. The small code allows Apple to track supposedly defective displays, while the large code is for identifying actual defects and letting Apple know which of its two partners supplied the broken displays. The code can also contain enough detail to make it easier for Apple to narrow down the problem to specific production batches of displays.
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