Nearly 2000 furnaces installed in an Arizona factory to make synthetic sapphire glass for Apple Inc. are to be removed and sold.
Documents released on Thursday by Merrimack, New Hampshire-based GT Advanced Technologies, which had been gearing up to produce huge amounts of product for the tech giant, show it will exit the glass-making business and try to sell the furnaces.
GT filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganisation on October 6 and says it will use the proceeds to repay $US439 million ($A474.98 million) Apple advanced GT to outfit the Mesa, Arizona, plant.
The agreement requires approval from a bankruptcy court judge.
Cupertino, California-based Apple retains the right to buy the furnaces.
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Apple Inc. announced last November it was buying a vacant 120,000-square-metre plant and contracting with GT to operate it to make glass it currently used only in its iPhone camera lenses and home buttons.
The company never said what uses it planned for the massive new source of glass but speculation centred on iPhone and iPad screens.
GT, however, had trouble getting the plant up and running, and the new iPhone 6 was released in September with a standard glass screen.
The company is laying off 724 workers at the plant, which will close by the end of the year. It also is closing a smaller plant in Salem, Massachusetts.
