Back in November of 2013, I explained in detail the rationale for a sapphire screen on Apple (AAPL) iPhone 6 in my column on Forbes titled Sapphire Screen For iPhone 6 Could Be A Real Gem. Since then, media has picked up on the story. Now there is a new twist that Apple will combine solar cells with a sapphire screen in iPhone 6.
The argument for sapphire screen was based on Apple advancing $578 million to GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) to produce sapphire on a large scale at an Apple facility in Arizona.
This morning my screen lit up with several trades on GT Advanced in the pre-market, the stock was trading up about 5% at the time of this writing. There is a well-researched story that is making rounds in the trading circles that claims that Apple will include solar cells in the sapphire glass screen of iPhone 6. The source of the story is here. The premise behind the story is three folds; the story points to an Apple patent about integrated touch sensor and solar assembly, a Foxconn prototype report, and Apple’s advertisements for solar engineers.
Here is the abstract of the referenced patent 8,368,654, “Integrated touch sensor and solar panel configurations that may be used on portable devices, particularly handheld portable devices such as a media player or phone are disclosed. The integrated touch sensor array and solar cell stack-ups may include electrodes that are used both for collecting solar energy and for sensing on a touch sensor array. By integrating both the touch sensors and the solar cell layers into the same stack-up, surface area on the portable device may be conserved. In addition to being used for capacitive sensing, the integrated touch sensor and solar panel configurations may also be used for optical sensing.”…Read more at Forbes