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GT Advanced Technologies Officially Announces Sapphire Settlement With Apple

BuffyzDead said:
SO,

WHO

is going to make all the Sapphire Glass Apple needs today, for camera and Touch ID glass, Plus for some of the iWatch models, that will need it this spring???

:eek:
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SO

WHO

Makes all the Sapphire glass they use now and for EVERY OTHER WATCH ( with sapphire glass - there are thousands of them )

:D

There is no problem making small size Sapphires - It's been done for decades. It's the large format Boules that were needed for smartphone / tablet displays that Apple were interested in.

There are many many companies making watch sized glass.

----------

The whole thing stinks of mismanagement, insider dealing and screwing over all the workers.

I am sure they had good intentions but basically didn't have the talent to make it happen.

I still think Apple should buy up the plant and Furnaces and make it work. and give all those dudes their jobs back.
 
bpcookson said:
Why is it so baffling? When you make investments, they don't always pan out. You do what you can to recoup as much as possible and then you move on.
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Of course. But you don't have an idea, spend half a billion dollars on it, then completely abandon it and write the money off because there are some problems. It certainly *looks* like they didn't even try to rescue the project, or the investment. They just shrugged it off. There must be more to that story.

What more do you expect to learn? I doubt there is much of interest left to be discussed at this point.
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What I want to know why they suddenly and completely gave up on this, when it was worth half a billion dollars to them a few months ago. How can missed deadlines make the project go from top priority to "just close it down"?

(And I'm sure shareholders aren't exactly satisfied with the current information, either.)
 
Tycho24 said:
What's baffling is Apple is getting SO screwed. They are out of the money, they don't get exclusivity, they don't get interest, they don't get patents or rights or anything really.
They helped a company that could have NEVER come up with the cash, create a technology that ONLY their competitors will benefit from... and for that, get NOTHING.
I've literally never seen a company get a better deal than GT. The main players cash out stock before a 90% dip, they get an ENORMOUS investment in new tech and equipment, & do not have to do a damn thing in return!!!!!
What is going on????
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Your definition of screwed and my definition of screwed are vastly different. Apple got the one thing they truly wanted from this deal: non-disclosure of the contract details. Everything else is considered gravy. As others have stated, Apple has had other projects fail that weren't as high profile as this one. That type of investment is just everyday business. It's the cost of, one of the favorite words on this forum, innovation and progress. Some you win, some you lose. Considering they will get a small portion of their investment back (25-30% if lucky) from the liquidation of the furnaces, Apple comes out pretty nicely.

In my opinion, GTAT got a better deal in this negotiation than in the original contract because they had leverage; the non-disclosure. Both parties walked away with something they desired. Apple got to keep it's secrets and GTAT got a chance to punt and start over. They don't get to keep the equipment, but they do get to keep their IP. I wish there were more repercussions for GTAT management but executives rarely bare the brunt in business. I sincerely feel bad for the people losing their jobs. Apple's losses pale in comparison. The employees got a ****** deal.
 
GTAT got a pretty good deal out of this with stock price increase and get to retain IP. Didn't cost them anything in terms of the investment of machinery by Apple which they use to pay down the debt (highly unlikely Apple will get 50% on the dollar on this). However they keep their IP and can do what they want with the next customer. All seriousness who would invest in GTAT now.
 
prowlmedia said:
I still think Apple should buy up the plant and Furnaces and make it work. and give all those dudes their jobs back.
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I don't understand so many people saying this. I don't think this is something that you can just make work. Else it would have been done. Apple has no expertise in manufacturing sapphire and the people working there couldn't get the project accomplished originally. IF Apple got to keep the IP and contracted with current sapphire manufacturers then I could probably see traction there.

It's going to be hard enough to get 2000 furnaces liquidated. A probable small market is about to be flooded with more product than it's ever seen available. I think GTAT is going to license it's IP to customers to see if they can improve on the processes to make them viable for volume production. I think that's what they mean when they say they may work together in the future.
 
OatmealRocks said:
GTAT got a pretty good deal out of this with stock price increase and get to retain IP. Didn't cost them anything in terms of the investment of machinery by Apple which they use to pay down the debt (highly unlikely Apple will get 50% on the dollar on this). However they keep their IP and can do what they want with the next customer. All seriousness who would invest in GTAT now.
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Same question I asked before... how does Apple get anything without the Court's agreement?
 
OatmealRocks said:
GTAT got a pretty good deal out of this with stock price increase and get to retain IP. Didn't cost them anything in terms of the investment of machinery by Apple which they use to pay down the debt (highly unlikely Apple will get 50% on the dollar on this). However they keep their IP and can do what they want with the next customer.
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Except that their primary business is manufacturing furnaces and they have an excess inventory of 2,000 furnaces.

How many furnaces do you think they will be able to sell?

If Apple couldn't make sapphire work, what are the chances that Samsung, HTC, LG or Motorola could make it work?
 
69Mustang said:
It's going to be hard enough to get 2000 furnaces liquidated. A probable small market is about to be flooded with more product than it's ever seen available. I think GTAT is going to license it's IP to customers to see if they can improve on the processes to make them viable for volume production. I think that's what they mean when they say they may work together in the future.
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I agree and let's consider that these furnances don't work, or rather, don't turn out the quality of product required. If they did Apple would have bought them.
 
It doesn't take much inference to conclude that GTAT had problems making sapphire boules heavier than 165 kg. Apple doesn't get to keep rights to GTAT's patents but GTAT gets free and perpetual use of Apple's annealing patent.

So the bottom line is that GTAT just couldn't make the big stuff like they promised. Sometimes you think you are closer to solving a manufacturing problem than you actually are.
 
69Mustang said:
Your definition of screwed and my definition of screwed are vastly different. Apple got the one thing they truly wanted from this deal: non-disclosure of the contract details. Everything else is considered gravy. As others have stated, Apple has had other projects fail that weren't as high profile as this one. That type of investment is just everyday business. It's the cost of, one of the favorite words on this forum, innovation and progress. Some you win, some you lose. Considering they will get a small portion of their investment back (25-30% if lucky) from the liquidation of the furnaces, Apple comes out pretty nicely.

In my opinion, GTAT got a better deal in this negotiation than in the original contract because they had leverage; the non-disclosure. Both parties walked away with something they desired. Apple got to keep it's secrets and GTAT got a chance to punt and start over. They don't get to keep the equipment, but they do get to keep their IP. I wish there were more repercussions for GTAT management but executives rarely bare the brunt in business. I sincerely feel bad for the people losing their jobs. Apple's losses pale in comparison. The employees got a ****** deal.
Click to expand...


Your definition of screwed and my definition of screwed are VERY different.

Everybody thought Apple had this HUGE competitive advantage by being literally the ONLY company that could offer large sapphire screens... as no such equipment existed that could do such a thing until Apple paid to have them built.

Now, GT has this tech & equipment because of Apple. Apple will likely NEVER do business with them again.... soooooo, in essence- they paid a ton of money to give every single company OTHER THAN THEMSELVES a competitive advantage in this area. This sucks!!!! I'd rather take my life savings, put it in a big pile & burn it than give it to my worst enemy... Get it??!!

Apple got REALLY badly screwed.
It's laughable that you think they turned out ok because other companies don't get to see the EXACT details of secret Apple contracts. Wow.... so that negates that they put a HUGE investment in a tech that literally cannot be replicated elsewhere (GT owns BOTH the equipment AND the patents) & everybody else now has access to, though they did NOT invest a dime?? Ummm. Ok. *scratches head*
 
proline said:
It looks like it was a technical dead end. That is to say that sapphire will not be suitable for phone screens anytime soon. What is puzzling is that if it were a technical issue, you'd think that would have been discovered early on before ordering thousands of furnaces.
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Issues of scaling?
 
Keirasplace said:
Actually, we can't conclude it was a technical dead end. Or they wouldn't have invested that much in the first place. They undoubtably had made smaller volume test production runs that WERE satisfactory. We can only conclude that it could not be produced at the quality level they wanted at the VOLUME they wanted. Apple needs extraordinary amount of screens.
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If that's the case why just give up and sell all these furnaces? Surely a year or two of R&D could turn a way to reach yield and volume.

I don't think we know exactly why both of the companies are walking away.
 
Breaking Good said:
Except that their primary business is manufacturing furnaces and they have an excess inventory of 2,000 furnaces.

How many furnaces do you think they will be able to sell?

If Apple couldn't make sapphire work, what are the chances that Samsung, HTC, LG or Motorola could make it work?
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Real loser is Apple. The investment and effort on GTAT and also purchasing from another supplier for the glass they used in iPhone6 and 6+.
 
Tycho24 said:
Your definition of screwed and my definition of screwed are VERY different.

Everybody thought Apple had this HUGE competitive advantage by being literally the ONLY company that could offer large sapphire screens... as no such equipment existed that could do such a thing until Apple paid to have them built.

Now, GT has this tech & equipment because of Apple. Apple will likely NEVER do business with them again.... soooooo, in essence- they paid a ton of money to give every single company OTHER THAN THEMSELVES a competitive advantage in this area. This sucks!!!! I'd rather take my life savings, put it in a big pile & burn it than give it to my worst enemy... Get it??!!

Apple got REALLY badly screwed.
It's laughable that you think they turned out ok because other companies don't get to see the EXACT details of secret Apple contracts. Wow.... so that negates that they put a HUGE investment in a tech that literally cannot be replicated elsewhere (GT owns BOTH the equipment AND the patents) & everybody else now has access to, though they did NOT invest a dime?? Ummm. Ok. *scratches head*
Click to expand...

Clearly if Apple couldn't get cost/yield/volume, it is going to be extremely hard for anyone else to do it.

Apple is top dog of the supply chain, I wouldnt expect a mass volume phone to get Sapphire anytime soon.
 
Jakexb said:
Crazy. I wonder who they're selling the equipment to? I had the impression they were really the only game in town. Maybe someone like Corning is getting into the sapphire business?
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Samsung is buying up all the furnaces in order to throw in a free sapphire overlay with every display panel + Ax processor combo :apple: purchases... which of course will shatter upon impact in time for ShatterGate 2015...
 
bpcookson said:
Why is it so baffling? When you make investments, they don't always pan out. You do what you can to recoup as much as possible and then you move on.

What more do you expect to learn? I doubt there is much of interest left to be discussed at this point.
Click to expand...

I guess when you're company is valued at over $700 Billion dollars, you can make 1/2 billion dollar mistakes and brush it off as "live and learn." :confused:
 
Keirasplace said:
Actually, we can't conclude it was a technical dead end. Or they wouldn't have invested that much in the first place. They undoubtably had made smaller volume test production runs that WERE satisfactory. We can only conclude that it could not be produced at the quality level they wanted at the VOLUME they wanted. Apple needs extraordinary amount of screens.
Click to expand...
This isn't the case. Anything that can be produced in small volume can be produced in large volume, unless it is limited by raw material (definitely not the case here). Obviously it takes time to scale things up, but if this were a scaling problem Apple would have kept the project alive for use in the iPhone 6S next year (which would have allowed plenty more time for scaling). There's definitely something else going on.
 
The full "WHY" explanation is still eluding us here.

However, from reading all the latest reports (and by reading between the lines a little), IMO it simply appears that GTA overpromised and underperfromed on all fronts.

For the iP6, Apple called them on it at a critical juncture during development this past year, and when GTAT couldn't produce, Apple pulled out and (supposedly) went with the latest Corning Gorilla Glass screens instead.

What's interesting is that the Apple Watch could have still benefited from GTAT sapphire screens due to the longer development time since it's not due to launch until next year. Again, my guess is that GTAT simply couldn't figure out how to successfully mass produce enough sapphire screens to meet Apple's product standards, and that's the end of story.
 
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