In mid-February Patently Apple posted a report titled "South Korea's LX Semicon's chip production Slowdown could effect BOE Technology's Display production for iPhones." The report noted that "BOE procures display driver ICs for the panels from South Korean chip firm LX Semicon. But LX Semicon’s production volume is falling short of the planned amount, sources said. The South Korean firm, due to the lack of production capacity from foundries, is supplying its display driver ICs first to Korea's LG Display." With South Korea fighting off China's attack on their tech industry dominance in display technology and beyond, it's not surprising that LX Semicon would favor supporting LG Display over BOE.

Today, the South Korean tech site The Elec has posted a rumor report that's entirely built on a wild guess.

The Elec reports: Since February, BOE’s panel volume for the phone plummeted over the past four months.  The initial reason for the dip early on was the shortage of display driver ICs, which BOE procures from LX Semicon, which is supplying more to LG Display [as we noted in our February report].

However, this alone doesn’t explain the dramatic drop of BOE’s production volume, the sources said. The most likely reason is that the panel maker likely changed the design of the OLED panels, such as expanding the circuit width of the thin-film transistor, and this was discovered by Apple, the sources added.

Considering that The Elec has chosen to post a report completely based on a "most likely" foundation, there's no use continuing to report on their rumor. You could check out the full report here.

BOE has been fighting to be a part of Apple's supply chain for years and I don't believe that they would risk making a display specification change to fool Apple. If you disagree, comment below.

In the end, the LX Semicon’s production volume falling and favoring LG Display could remain the key factor in BOE being held back from producing orders for Apple. Also remember that back in early February we posted a report titled "In order to retain their iPhone display business with Apple, Samsung is considering a legal strategy against OLED display competitors." When times get tough like they are today, the knives come out and competitors battle it out. But guessing that BOE would try to fool Apple doesn't seem to a viable rumor.