Apple spent millions of dollars to add barcodes (QR) to iPhone screens to avoid being charged hundreds of millions of dollars by fraudulent suppliers in reporting the number of defective screens during the production process.
According to PCMag companies, Apple is said to have been monitoring Chinese display Lens Technology and Biel Crystal for allegedly falsifying reports on the number of defective screens. Specifically, they confirmed that 30% of iPhone screens were thrown away due to defects, causing Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. However after Apple created a new QR system engraved into the glass, this error rate dropped to 10%.
There are actually two QR codes on each iPhone screen, and they are added in different locations at different stages of production. There was no consistency in the size of the codes, with one code measuring 0.2 mm, the report said. The second code is larger in size, about the size of the “tip of a colored pencil”. Apple reportedly spent millions in 2020 adding QR codes to the manufacturing process and then scanning the finished screen for that code at the end of production.
The smaller QR code is a matrix of 625 laser-embedded points and is not in the same location on every iPhone, sources said. Through the use of new scanning techniques using special microscopic lenses and pairing them with a ring light, Apple can avoid etching codes too deeply into the glass, affecting its reliability.
It is known that Apple continues to use raw glass from Corning – a company in which Apple regularly invests. But that raw material goes to Lens Technology and Biel Crystal for shaping. With the small code, Apple can track down supposedly defective displays, while the large code will be devoted to identifying actual defects and helping Apple know which of its two partners supplies the displays. broken. Additionally, the code may also contain enough detail to make it easier for Apple to narrow down the identification of issues to specific display production batches
