Corning's tougher Gorilla Glass 4 set for its big reveal
Future smartphones could be more difficult to break thanks to Gorilla Glass 4. Corning’s next-generation product is set to be unveiled later today, Nov. 20, according to The Verge.
The introduction of Gorilla Glass 4 comes after thousands of hours of study by fractologists, who examined hundreds of broken phone screens to see why the glass covers shatter. “They bought a bunch of phones, and started dropping them in our labs with a scientifically defined test mechanism,” Cliff Hund, president of Corning East Asia, said.
In lab tests, the new glass survived 80 percent of the time when a device was dropped face-down from a height of one meter onto a rough surface of 180-grit sandpaper. These tests concluded that Gorilla Glass 4 is two times tougher than previous versions.
As noted by The Verge:
“I won’t say we’ve wiped it out, but we’ve taken a real large chunk out of it,” said Cliff Hund, president of Corning East Asia, talking about the odds that such falls will ruin our pricy smartphone. Hund said “there are no downsides” to Gorilla Glass 4′s improved damage resistance and emphasized it allows for the same optical clarity as prior versions.
Gorilla Glass 3 is found on most smartphones sold around the world, including the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
See also: Apple’s ill-fated partnership with sapphire maker GT chronicled by WSJ.
