Patently Apple posted a report on September 5th titled "Apple Reportedly Books up Production of High-End Dual Lens Camera Modules at Largan Precision's new Plant." The report stated that Apple was booking up production capacity 12 megapixel (and higher) lens modules at Largan's new factory. Only Largan meets Apple's minimum rate requirement.

Apple booking up Largan's production supports the latest rumor that surfaced yesterday from a KGI Securities analyst who predicts that Apple will shift all new iPhone models to using Face ID, even though that's not any kind of a stretch. Nor is the rumor of Face ID coming to the iPad Pro. Yet this is likely explains why Apple is booking up as much of Largan's new plant production as possible.

A new report today suggests that Apple is using glass + Plastic lens pieces for the iPhone X as opposed to glass only. Largan's CEO Lin En-ping explained during yesterday's investors conference call that 3D sensing solutions need two lenses. Unlike general sensors, 3D sensing lenses use laser light source and therefore heat dissipation is a problem, according to Lin. There are three 3D sensing solutions that can solve the problem: all-glass lenses, glass plus plastic (G+P) lenses, all-plastic lenses.

There are clients planning to adopt G+P lenses, but no one plans to adopt all-glass solutions, Lin said. Glass lens pieces are superior to plastic ones in optical property but inferior in sensing capability, and therefore G+P lenses are comparatively advantageous over all-glass or all-plastic lenses for 3D sensing, Lin said.

Largan's CEO let it be known that the company is now evaluating the feasibility of producing aspherical molded glass pieces. Aspherical molded glass had advantages over the current lenses Largan provides Apple with for the iPhone X.

The next-gen aspherical molded glass lenses offer a reduction in weight and number of optical elements with more compact design and improved performance. They could also improve tolerances such as tilt and alignment, providing more tolerance budget.

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