Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning, now in its sixth generation, designed to be thin, light and damage-resistant. As a brand, Gorilla Glass is unique to Corning, but close equivalents exist, including AGC Inc.'s Dragontrail and Schott AG's Xensation. The alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass is used primarily as cover glass for portable electronic devices, including mobile phones, portable media players, portable computer displays, and television screens. It is manufactured in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, Asan, Korea, and Taiwan. The glass gains its surface strength, ability to contain flaws, and crack-resistance by being immersed in a proprietary, hot, potassium-salt, ion-exchange bath. Corning experimented with chemically strengthened glass in 1960 as part of a "Project Muscle" initiative. Within a few years they had developed a "muscled glass" marketed as Chemcor. The product was used until the early 1990s in commercial and industrial applications, including automotive, aviation and pharmaceutical uses, notably in approximately one hundred 1968 Dodge Dart and Plymouth Barracuda racing cars, where minimizing the vehicle's weight was essential. Experimentation was revived in 2005, investigating whether the glass could be made thin enough for use in consumer electronics. It was brought into commercial use when Apple asked Corning for a thin, toughened glass to be used in its new iPhone. In October 2017 some five billion devices globally contained Gorilla Glass. While dominating its market, Gorilla Glass faces varying competition from rivals such as Dragontrail and synthetic sapphire.
Development
Corning further developed the material for a variety of smartphones and other consumer electronics devices for a range of companies. The company markets the material's primary properties as its high scratch-resistance and its hardness, which allows the glass to be thin without being fragile. It can be recycled. By 2010, the glass had been used in approximately 20% of mobile handsets worldwide, about 200 million units. The second generation, called "Gorilla Glass 2", was introduced in 2012. In October 2012 Corning announced that over one billion mobile devices used Gorilla Glass. Gorilla Glass 2 is 20% thinner than the original Gorilla Glass. Gorilla Glass 3 was introduced at CES 2013. According to Corning, the material is up to three times more scratch-resistant than the previous version, with enhanced ability to resist deep scratches that typically weaken glass. Promotional material for Gorilla Glass 3 claims that it is 40% more scratch-resistant, in addition to being more flexible. The design of Gorilla Glass 3 was Corning's first use of atomic-scale modeling before the material was melted in laboratories, with the prediction of the optimal composition obtained through the application of rigidity theory. When Gorilla Glass 3 was announced, Corning indicated that areas for future improvements included reducing reflectivity and susceptibility to fingerprint smudges, and changing surface treatments and the way the glass is finished. Antimicrobial Gorilla Glass with ionic silver, which is antibacterial, incorporated into its surface was demonstrated in early 2014. Gorilla Glass 4, with better damage resistance and capability to be made thinner with the same performance as its predecessor, was announced at the end of 2014. Gorilla Glass 5 was first used on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in 2016. Gorilla Glass SR+ was first used on the Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch in 2016. Ford Motor Company announced that it would use the material for the front and rear windshields on its Ford GT sports car beginning in 2016; it later spread to mainstream models such as the Ford F-150 and Jeep Wrangler. Gorilla Glass 6 was first used on the Samsung Galaxy S10 in 2019.
Manufacture
During its manufacture, the glass is toughened by ion exchange. The material is immersed in a moltenalkalinepotassium salt at a temperature of approximately, wherein smaller sodium ions in the glass are replaced by larger potassium ions from the salt bath. The larger ions occupy more volume and thereby create a surface layer of high residual compressive stress, giving the glass surface increased strength, ability to contain flaws, and overall crack-resistance, making it resistant to damage from everyday use.
Related Corning glass technologies
On October 26, 2011, Corning announced the commercial launch of Lotus Glass, designed for OLED and next-generation LCD displays. The intrinsic thermal consistency of Lotus Glass allows it to retain its shape and quality during high-temperature processing. Decreased compaction and variation during the crystallization and activation step further reduce stress and distortions to the substrate. This enables tighter design rules in advanced backplanes for higher resolution and faster response time. According to Corning, Gorilla Glass is specifically a cover glass for the exterior of display devices while Lotus Glass is designed as a glass substrate to be used within liquid crystal display panels. In other words, a single product could incorporate both Gorilla Glass and Lotus Glass. On February 2, 2012, Corning Incorporated and SamsungMobile Display Co., Ltd. signed an agreement to establish a new equity venture for the manufacture of specialty glass substrates for the OLED device market in Korea. The joint venture is based on Lotus Glass. Lotus XT Glass became available in 2013. In 2012, Corning introduced Willow Glass, a flexible glass based on borosilicate glass, launched for use as a display substrate.
