Apple-Liquidmetal Collaboration Awarded Patent on Process for Mass Production of Amorphous Metals

Arfdog · Jul 17, 2013

Why would you want to use an amorphous metal? The point of metals (and carbon for that matter) is they have a crystalline structure for rigidity and strength. Maybe not that important in a phone?

Also, why not just use conventional casting? Or does injection molding provide more flexibility?

I don't buy the line that this amorphous metal is as strong as Ti.... maybe aluminum but not steel or Ti. The last two get their strength from their lattices. Take that mofo away and you lose strength.

duffman9000 · Jul 17, 2013

Arfdog said:
Why would you want to use an amorphous metal? The point of metals (and carbon for that matter) is they have a crystalline structure for rigidity and strength. Maybe not that important in a phone?

Also, why not just use conventional casting? Or does injection molding provide more flexibility?

I don't buy the line that this amorphous metal is as strong as Ti.... maybe aluminum but not steel or Ti. The last two get their strength from their lattices. Take that mofo away and you lose strength.

I don't know if it has to be that strong. I used to have an Apple's SIM ejector tool and I was surprised how strong it was. I was inspecting a used iPhone and the SIM didn't want to eject. I thought surely the tool was going to bend given how much force I was applying.

Heltik · Jul 17, 2013

Arfdog said:
Why would you want to use an amorphous metal? The point of metals (and carbon for that matter) is they have a crystalline structure for rigidity and strength. Maybe not that important in a phone?

Also, why not just use conventional casting? Or does injection molding provide more flexibility?

I don't buy the line that this amorphous metal is as strong as Ti.... maybe aluminum but not steel or Ti. The last two get their strength from their lattices. Take that mofo away and you lose strength.

Look at the material properties and you'll notice liquidMetal is far stronger than conventional metals because of its amorphous structure. Crystalline structures ineffect provide many fracture points which are non-existent in LiquidMetal. There are several studies highlighted on their web-site. This is a truly revolutionary product.

Tankmaze · Jul 18, 2013

ajvizzgamer101 said:
Thats not the purpose of it. iPhone will be Aluminum and LiquidMetal. The Liquid Metal is radio transparent so it will replace the glass.

I admit to know nothing about this material, but knowing that the sim ejector apple using is based on this material and I can tell that even if its thin, it is quite strong.

and also reading here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidmetal
sansa and vertu have used the material for casing on their product.
so yeah hopefully apple would use this material instead the aluminium for the iphone casing.

everything-i · Jul 18, 2013

ewlon said:
My old Swiss cheese brain seems to remember that sheets of glass with very parallel sides is made by floating it molten onto tin during manufacturing, just as described by this patent.

Odd coincidence that this technique is similar to processes for forming sheets of glass but the formation of this is very complex because the metal needs to cool without forming crystals. This is what gives it a glass like character rather than traditional metals that are crystalline and hence have point weaknesses along their crystal boundaries.

Bhatu · Jul 18, 2013

Piggie said:
What about a plastic expensive iPhone?

People like yourself who make childish comments like that has no idea about plastics. You think every grade of "plastic" is the same a toy soldier from a Christmas cracker.

Plastic are amazing and can offer so many qualities from soft a so flexible they would break your fall from a high drop down to something tosh hard, amazing impact resistance, the ability to deform and return to their shape.

There is a world full of high tech synthetic products that apple fanbois say "yuk it's plastic = junk" which is so arrogant and ignorant.

No matter what, a high tech synthetic next generation impact resistant marvelous amazing plastic would still be called as plastic! One can call it by a fancy name say NG IR M A Plastic, but still its a plastic and people gonna hate it!

Rogifan · Jul 18, 2013

lobeyonekenobi said:
Also stop making this it doesn't feel good in the hand remark, it's purely subjective. You won't comment on this thread no more as most people have made you look quite stupid

This. Read any review of the HTC One. I have yet to see one that said it didn't feel good in the hand. But this isn't about aluminum, its about Apple. iGrip probably wouldn't be dissing the material if Apple didnt use it across their product lines.

lobeyonekenobi · Jul 18, 2013

Rogifan said:
This. Read any review of the HTC One. I have yet to see one that said it didn't feel good in the hand. But this isn't about aluminum, its about Apple. iGrip probably wouldn't be dissing the material if Apple didnt use it across their product lines.

I have said from the moment it was released I would get this over the iPhone 5 maybe, it looks fantastic and everyone says it's a great phone.

iGrip is a Samboy, if it was a Samsung phone that was aluminium he would be all over it, it's a better type of aluminium etc, don't get why he's not on Samsung Rumours so he can wet his pants there

nothing that guy says makes sense.

Arfdog · Jul 18, 2013

Heltik said:
Look at the material properties and you'll notice liquidMetal is far stronger than conventional metals because of its amorphous structure. Crystalline structures ineffect provide many fracture points which are non-existent in LiquidMetal. There are several studies highlighted on their web-site. This is a truly revolutionary product.

Marketing hoopla until I see a complete set of material properties. Looks like the melting temperature is very low, around 400C.

Tora Shin · Jul 18, 2013

The difference between the comments here and at semiaccurate is incredible. I don't think a single person here actually knows what an amorphous metal is.

otismotive77 · Jul 19, 2013

awesome tech. eager to see this in the next iphone. go apple! :apple:

beaniemyman · Jul 19, 2013

let's hope the iphone 6 is made out of this hi-tech material. would be a really strong selling point for the phone.

sjinsjca · Jul 19, 2013

Four oF NINE said:
This is a fascinating development, but what would be the advantage over billet aluminum?

LM is much stronger. It will allow products to be made thinner and lighter without loss of strength. Soon you'll be able to slice bread with an iPhone...

The SIM ejector tool from the first few generations of the iPhone was made of LM. That stuff is astonishingly strong.

Four oF NINE · Jul 19, 2013

sjinsjca said:
LM is much stronger. It will allow products to be made thinner and lighter without loss of strength. Soon you'll be able to slice bread with an iPhone...

The SIM ejector tool from the first few generations of the iPhone was made of LM. That stuff is astonishingly strong.

Oh, I have one of those.. not sure why they quit including them.. I didn't realize it was LM though.. I'll have to take another look at it.

beaniemyman · Jul 20, 2013

that's a great tech, let's hope we see it in the iphone 6 if not in the iphone 5s.

egoistaxx9 · Jul 20, 2013

would be really cool to see the next macbook and the ipad made out of this stuff, great improvement.

asthamapheo · Jul 20, 2013

when can we expect to see this material in apple's products?

gnasher729 · Jul 20, 2013

Heltik said:
Aluminium is less abundant than steel and harder to produce as more reactive, therefore barring certain exotic alloys, it is more expensive than steel.

There is plenty of bauxite around. Aluminium isn't rare at all. The problem is that you need tons of electricity (and a few chemicals) to extract the pure metal, and that costs money.

Renzatic · Jul 20, 2013

gnasher729 said:
There is plenty of bauxite around. Aluminium isn't rare at all. The problem is that you need tons of electricity (and a few chemicals) to extract the pure metal, and that costs money.

Yeah, but not so much it makes it an expensive material to work with. Blocks of aluminium are pretty cheap overall. A Macbook Pro probably only has about 5 bucks of the stuff in it.

The relatively expensive part is the milling process used to make the unibody shells for all your various Apple devices.

Heltik · Feb 13, 2014

gnasher729 said:
There is plenty of bauxite around. Aluminium isn't rare at all. The problem is that you need tons of electricity (and a few chemicals) to extract the pure metal, and that costs money.

Agreed, hence the "harder to produce as more reactive"... Covered the process you are referring to.

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Arfdog said:
Marketing hoopla until I see a complete set of material properties. Looks like the melting temperature is very low, around 400C.

Even if that is the case, surely that's a benefit for manufacturing.... Not like the phone will succumb to anywhere near that temperature in normal use... Besides, what's the melting point of the polymers used in most Android telephones?

kdarling · Feb 13, 2014

ajvizzgamer101 said:
Thats not the purpose of it. iPhone will be Aluminum and LiquidMetal. The Liquid Metal is radio transparent so it will replace the glass.

Liquid Metal is NOT REPEAT NOT radio transparent. Quite the opposite.

The misunderstanding that it is, started with an interview where an LM engineer suggested that perhaps the metal could be made even more conductive and used as a full body antenna.

Somebody totally ignored the part about the metal itself being the antenna, and started the transparent myth.

Tankmaze said:
and also reading here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidmetal
sansa and vertu have used the material for casing on their product.
so yeah hopefully apple would use this material instead the aluminium for the iphone casing.

Vertu is not alone. Samsung started using LiquidMetal in their phones back in 2002, for hinges and trim. They later made a luxury phone using LM as the chassis, in 2008.

Then Apple jumped in late around 2010 and bought perpetual rights to what's been invented so far.

Apple-Liquidmetal Collaboration Awarded Patent on Process for Mass Production of Amorphous Metals

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