By Yoon Sung-won Samsung Display will provide organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panels for Apple’s new iPhones, sources familiar with the issue said, Friday. Expectations are that Samsung and Apple, which have been engaged in a long and fierce patent disputes over the last five years, may find more cooperative and mutually productive ways to work together. According to industry sources, the display manufacturing affiliate of Samsung Electronics will supply about 100 million 5.5-inch OLED panels to Apple over the next at least three years. This will bring about 3 trillion won in annual sales to the display maker. Samsung Display declined to comment. Besides display panels, Samsung Electronics has provided application processors used for Apple’s iPhones. Apple has consigned the manufacturing of its application processors to semiconductor foundry partners including Samsung Electronics' system LSI unit and Taiwan’s TSMC. To meet the increased OLED panel demand, Samsung Display is expected to build an additional manufacturing facility dedicated to producing OLED panels for iPhones at the A3 plant in Asan, South Chungcheong Province. The A3 plant produces flexible OLED panels and is capable of manufacturing 15,000 sixth-generation panels, with a 1,850mm width and a 1,500mm length, a month. Separately, the company has invested in expanding the A3 plant’s facilities to double the output starting early this year. Apple has been expected to use active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display panels instead of what it calls the retina display based on LCD technology for the new iPhones that will be released in the latter half of next year. In the small- and mid-sized display market, AMOLED displays have recorded over 50 percent year-on-year growth, surpassing that of LCD-based products. In particular, makers of premium smartphones tend to choose AMOLED displays, giving more opportunities to Samsung Display’s AMOLED panel manufacturing business.