“The Russian company ‘Monocrystal,’ a manufacturer of synthetic sapphire for high-tech applications in electronics, optical devices and metallization pastes for solar cells, which supplies sapphire glass for the Apple Watch, has been recognized as the largest manufacturer in the world; the annual revenue of the company reached $87 million,” Sputnik News reports.
“According to the recent report of the market research and technology analysis company Yole Developpement (YD), Russian ‘Monocrystal’ is one of the few companies in the segment that have managed to show an operating profit by the end of 2014,” Sputnik News reports. “The company has ended up ahead of Japanese competitors, taking the lead in the production of sapphire.”
“In July, the factory, based in the Russian city of Stavropol, grew a 300-pound sapphire crystal, a world’s first, using the kyropoulos method based on its own technology,” Sputnik News reports. “Monocrystal now holds 27% of the world market sapphire for optoelectronic applications and 11% of the world market of aluminum pastes for solar energy. It is one of the main suppliers of 2-inch sapphire wafers, which is made for heavy-duty panel displays for Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: That’s how those who wear big boy pants get things done, GT Advanced.
SEE ALSO:
Apple, GT Advanced and the ‘boule graveyard’ – November 20, 2014
Lack of experience, mismanagement doomed GT Advanced’s sapphire adventure – November 19, 2014
GT Advanced Tech creditors chafe at settlement deal with Apple – November 19, 2014
Apple sticking with Arizona plan after sapphire supplier GT Advanced falters – November 18, 2014
Did Apple bully GT Advanced Technologies? – November 11, 2014
GT Advanced COO claims Apple used ‘bait and switch’ tactic – November 7, 2014
Court unseals GT Advanced documents: Apple says it ‘bent over backwards’ to help sapphire supplier – November 7, 2014
GT Advanced blames ‘oppressive and burdensome’ Apple terms in quest to ax sapphire production – October 10, 2014
I did wonder what was in them big pants MDN, Balls or Boules! 🙂
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
It turned out to be bottle of vodka.
Oh, yeah. 300 lbs. of crystal meth.
Is Apple still into needing huge amounts of sapphire when Gorilla Glass is improving? It doesn’t appear as though Apple would be gaining that much over other smartphone companies by using sapphire displays unless they’ve found a way to combine it with something else to make it practically indestructible (patent pending).
Sapphire is more scratch resistant than glass but more easily shattered. Corning is doing great things with glass, making Gorilla Glass obsolete. Is there any real need for an ultra expensive, hard to produce screen material any more?
Especially now that there is a patent for tech that embeds touch tech and fingerprint sensors into the Gorilla Glass itself. http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/07/21/new-tech-bonds-fingerprint-sensors-under-gorilla-glass-could-allow-button-free-iphones
http://www.androidauthority.com/gorilla-glass-optical-waveguides-394924/
So this is painful. Not that a Russian company has done a great thing (which they did), but that a supposed opportunity for an American company was wasted on some idiots.
People have to “STEP UP TO THE PLATE” if you want to bring jobs back to America. Do or Die…
I wonder if the Russian embargo on U.S. products will include Apple. If so Apples’ going to have to find a new supplier.
It sounds like you’re describing a Russian embargo on imports, which makes your second sentence nonsensical.
If Russia is planning to ban its companies from exporting to U.S. companies, that would be committing economic suicide.
MDN’s take is right on.
GT Advanced is and was run by a bunch of con artists and they should all be in jail for fraud.They falsified financials and lied to investors right up to the day they filed bankruptcy. They cashed out stock before they field
Crap, safari locked up before I finished and submitted anyway.
Anyhow, that should have been filed and I had a bunch of other gripes but I lost my thunder now. hehe
Bottom line, they should be in jail and have their bank accounts locked and forfeited.
Nice that they were able to create such a large crystal successfully.. Seems to be about 50% larger than their mass produced stuff.. The question is whether they can create those large boules in sufficient quantities consistently to meet Apple’s larger screen (>2in) demand.