Apple announced the much awaited iPad mini with Retina display, last month, due for a November launch, without detailing any precise availability date.
While it was speculated that the high-resolution display equipped iteration of the
iPad mini would be in short supply, even before the device was launched, Apple CEO Tim Cook, acknowledged during the
company's earnings call for the fourth quarter that it was unclear if Apple would be able to produce enough to meet demand for the tablet. The tight supplies of the Retina display have been blamed for the limited production.
A report now claims that the new iPad mini's LCD panel, which is made by Sharp, is in short supply due to problems with its advanced IGZO(indium gallium zinc oxide) based display technology which is employed in its TFT panel.
The report by Korean publication ETNews, cites industry sources to
inform that Sharp's TFT implementation, is causing burn-in problems on a number of displays. "This burn-in is not visible to the eyes of ordinary users, but does not meet the particular technological standards of Apple. So there was a yield problem," says the report.
It adds that the burn-in problem is being caused because of the major reduction of the pixel size.
A percentage of the new iPad mini's displays are also being procured from LG display but problems are being encountered with the ones produced by Sharp, the report elaborates.
Apple and its partners will need to find a solution to fix the burn-in issue to settle problems with supplies. Apple could also be looking at changing the display's supplier and could even talk to Samsung, which had supplied the Retina display for the first Retina iPad.
The new iPad mini features a 7.9-inch Retina display with a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels (on par with the iPad) and pixel density of 326ppi. It's powered by a 64-bit A7 chip which also powers the new iPhone 5s, offering up to four times faster CPU performance and up to eight times faster graphics performance than the previous generation iPad mini.