Retina iPad Mini: Don't hold your breath, says DisplaySearch - CNET

Better late than never. The Retina iPad Mini isn’t right around the corner, says DisplaySearch.

iPad Mini: getting enough light through the pixels while keeping the display apparatus thin enough for the Mini is a challenge.

(Credit: Apple)

The Retina iPad Mini continues to face mass production challenges, according to NPD DisplaySearch.

“We’re looking at Q1 2014,” Richard Shim, an NPD DisplaySearch analyst, told CNET. That’s the display mass production schedule that DisplaySearch is seeing at the moment. “The date’s in flux,” Shim added.

It’s a matter of building large quantities of the displays at reasonable cost, he said. “Can you do it cost effectively? Can you charge an acceptable price to the consumer?”

And it’s not clear what display technology will be used. One of the candidates is LTPS, or low-temperature polysilicon – the same technology used in the iPhone 5. But it’s a challenge to apply LTPS to larger displays.

“LTPS is harder to make at larger sizes. Yields go down as you get larger,” Shim said.

As of late last year, other analysts told CNET that making a Retina iPad Mini with a design identical to the current Mini was not possible. “They would have had to compromise on thickness and weight and price,” Vinita Jakhanwal, a display analyst at IHS iSuppli, told CNET at that time.

Seen through the lens of the third-and fourth-generation iPads, which have Retina displays, the challenge is obvious. Compared to the iPad 2, those later iPads became heavier and thicker because of the display apparatus, including backlights, needed to get enough light through the pixels.