Corning Again Criticizes Sapphire as Potential Alternative to Gorilla Glass

[throttlemeister]

Is this an English sentence?



And yet it breaks more than Gorilla Glass?

Hmm... Credibility prob, bro.

Not at all. Harder materials are more brittle. Cast iron is harder than steel, but it breaks to pieces rather easy. Steel is softer, but its much stronger. It bends rather than breaks.

Sapphire is very similar. It is very hard and extremely scratch resistent. But it also shatters relatively easy. On a mobile phone or a tablet, you would have to have a rather thick slab of sapphire to prevent it to break very easily due to the very large surface area. This would make such a device much thicker and heavier than they are now.

This is exactly why you barely see it in applications larger than a watch. And even in watches it is rather thick, despite the small surface area.

Soft = flexible = shatter resisent != scratch resistent
Hard != flexible != shatter resistent = scratch resistent

If you rate it from soft to hard, it would look like something like this:
- Plastic
- Gorilla Glass
- Glass
- Sapphire

Where the first is virtually unbreakable but extremely sensitive for scratching and the last is very brittle but virtually unscratchable.

 

[braintumor]

Actually the fact that GTAT found a way to put a photovoltaic layer into sapphire glass IMO all speaks to that it will be used for a smart watch project.

One of the major disadvantages of the smart watch until now was always battery life and apple didnt wanted to release a smart watch with less then a week of battery life, so the photovoltaic layer seems like a great way to extend battery life.
Also an iWatch would always be outside (around your arm) and potentially exposed to sunlight. Your phone on the other hand is most of the times in ur pocket and away from light.

Doesnt make much sense to put sapphire on the iphone, since GG is very scratch resistant and like many say sapphire is just as breakable. Sapphire has already proved itself in the high end watch market, so if GTAT has found a way to include photovoltaic, then we are talking smartwatch here guys...

 

[TallManNY]

Sorry, but Corning is getting a little corny.

You know how many people crack their iPhone glass on a daily basis? A LOT. And a lot of those people have their glass broken from a SHORT drop and sometimes WITH a case. I haven't, but know a bunch of people that have.

Obviously Apple knows what they're doing and they have the finances/resources/research ability to use Sapphire to the best of their ability.

Sure, but I haven't heard anything from scientific folks suggesting that Sapphire isn't just as brittle as Gorilla Glass. Nobody has said that this is likely to improve phone survival from drops.

By the way, if you want your phone to survive drops, build it out of a shock resistant material like plastic. The hard aluminum and glass of the latest (non-5c) phones has added to the destruction from drops. I love the build quality, but it comes with a risk that many people respond to by casing their phone (thereby negating much of the premium build quality).

 

[samcraig]

Sapphire isn't glass. It's a gemstone.

And it will shatter just like glass.

 

[notabadname]

Yeah, Deep Blue, Rolex, Tag, Breitling include it in their watches because; it is so hard to see the display through it, it is so fragile (Deep Blue Watches are all professional dive, some rated to a 1,500 m or 5,000 feet), and it scratches easily. You have a nice product Corning, but Sapphire is measurably better in several ways. Especially hardness and scratch resistance : Vickers Hardness 2200 versus 649 according to Corning's data sheet, (or 9 versus about 6 on Mohs Scale - not a linear scale).

No contest. But of course you are going to desperately try to steer the billion-unit smart device industry away from any competition - a shift to sapphire could truly be a crushing blow.

 

[WallToWallMacs]

Groan.

1) The guy should have replied, "regarding sapphire, all what we've heard is speculation so until there is some sort of product announcement from Apple it isn't fruitful guessing what a company will or won't do".

2) The speculation of a Sapphire screen is as stupid as the iWatch nonsense - again, until there is actually confirmation via a product launch the only people gaining out of it are article writers who are producing click-bait for people who seem to live on baseless speculation.

 

[Apple Key]

We need flexible glass! It would solve everything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass

 

[vomhorizon]

Or maybe Corning knows more about glass and sapphire than Apple does?

Or maybe apple did some actual homework weighing in solutions that corning had in the pipeline with "other" solutions that required a half a billion dollar investment? Apple has made choices all its life..What if apple took a cue form all other phone makers (that knew a lot more about cell phones than apple) such as Nokia, Motorolla and "enterprise kings" such as Microsoft and launched an iPhone with a keypad instead of a single touch screen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eywi0h_Y5_U

Or the so called "expert" journalists that claimed the phone to be a failure..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRelVKWbMAv0

Only apple knows the pros and cons of its solution compared to what corning has in the works (OEM like apple would definitely know what corning has in the works lot earlier than the market) and as company its their job to take the risk with a material that has not been used on a mass produced industry leading handset..They took it when they dropped the keypad, or when they went in for a closed unibody frame (no replaceable batteries) or when they incorporated biometrics into the home button etc etc..Cornings marketing will probably not even be remembered if and when the iPhone is launched with sapphire as the entire global news media will be singing to apple's marketing machine (vis-a-vis the keynote)..This is perhaps what corning fears, but their approach should be to launch a wide range of diverse and competitive solutions both for apple and its competitors..

BTW Has anyone seen a screen review of the sapphire screens on the vertu phones?

 

[Macalway]

Apple knows exactly the differences as they are aware of how many of these scratch and break, and what this new stuff is like.

But it's sure fun to see the Corning guy whine

 

[ChrisA]

Is this an English sentence?



And yet it breaks more than Gorilla Glass?

Hmm... Credibility prob, bro.

Yes, the harder material will break first. Try this experiment. Get a large rubber pencil eraser an whack it with a big hammer, Next do the same with a sheet of normal window glass. The glass is harder. It breaks BECAUSE it is harder and can't be bent. It's the same here, the material that can stand to be bent will not break.

 

[samcraig]

Apple knows exactly the differences as they are aware of how many of these scratch and break, and what this new stuff is like.

But it's sure fun to see the Corning guy whine

He's not whining. He's doing what any Exec would do when asked about competition or the industry.

 

[nagromme]

I'm sure Apple's not suddenly going to dump Gorilla Glass entirely, and the rest of the smartphone market surely won't even if Apple does. Corning will continue to make money in the market Apple created for them! They need not panic. And they missed a PR opportunity to redirect the sapphire talk into a positive, upbeat reminder of whatever GG's latest specs/advantages are.

Heck, maybe they should get into the sapphire business themselves. They could brand it differently and keep selling both lines. (Gibbon Glass? Yes!)

 

[ChrisA]

I wonder if Apple is not planning to laminate the sapphire to the glass and get the best of both. Or perhaps they will laminate the sapphire to the LCD screen and then that to a metal backing.

I doubt very much they would simply swap out an identical shape and size sapphire for glass without other changes to the design. The sapphire layer will be a lot thinner than the glass it replaces

 

[samcraig]

I'm sure Apple's not suddenly going to dump Gorilla Glass entirely, and the rest of the smartphone market surely won't even if Apple does. Corning will continue to make money in the market Apple created for them! They need not panic.

Indeed. Not to mention that Apple hasn't stated what their intended use for Sapphire is yet. It might not even be in a high yield device like their phones.

 

[vomhorizon]

I wonder if Apple is not planning to laminate the sapphire to the glass and get the best of both. Or perhaps they will laminate the sapphire to the LCD screen and then that to a metal backing.

I doubt very much they would simply swap out an identical shape and size sapphire for glass without other changes to the design. The sapphire layer will be a lot thinner than the glass it replaces

Precisely, Only apple knows the "unique" solution that it has in mind for sapphire and what ultimate goals apple has from it..

 

[Michael Goff]

Apple knows exactly the differences as they are aware of how many of these scratch and break, and what this new stuff is like.

But it's sure fun to see the Corning guy whine

Whining? Seriously, you're going to say he's whining?

 

[Macalway]

Whining? Seriously, you're going to say he's whining?

No, and I can't believe people actually quote me

 

[numlock]

I'm sure Apple's not suddenly going to dump Gorilla Glass entirely, and the rest of the smartphone market surely won't even if Apple does. Corning will continue to make money in the market Apple created for them! They need not panic. And they missed a PR opportunity to redirect the sapphire talk into a positive, upbeat reminder of whatever GG's latest specs/advantages are.

Heck, maybe they should get into the sapphire business themselves. They could brand it differently and keep selling both lines. (Gibbon Glass? Yes!)

what market would there be if not for their products and innovation?

 

[Mousse]

A lot of people are mixing up hardness with other properties.

The Mohs scale is about scratch resistance (hardness), not about resistance to breaking (tenacity).

Exactly. Glass is harder than steel, yet steel will not break if impacted. It would be bent all out of shape, but it won't shatter. Tungsten carbide (drill bits) is much, much harder than steel, but steel has greater tenacity. Take a drill bit and try to hammer a bend in it. It's impossible since it will break instead of bend.

Yes, the harder material will break first. Try this experiment. Get a large rubber pencil eraser an whack it with a big hammer, Next do the same with a sheet of normal window glass. The glass is harder. It breaks BECAUSE it is harder and can't be bent. It's the same here, the material that can stand to be bent will not break.

Um...not quite.Tungsten carbide (9 mohs scale) is harder than glass (8 mohs scale) yet it is more shatter resistant than glass. It takes a lot of force to shatter tungsten carbide, much more than glass.

 

[apollo1444]

you think it has all of those disadvantages? that's why you invest in investigation, stop resting on your laurels corning

 

[darkslide29]

Someone is mad about not being able to sell 100 mil displays a year to this "large company" they speak so vaguely about.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

You need to research a bit more on what the sapphire thing with GT Advanced is all about. It's more than just resisting scratches.

If the article below is correct, we may be looking at a solar charging panel on the next iPhone.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/206...logies-is-ready-to-electrify-the-mobile-world

Not iPhones... I think if they come out they'll be on the iWatch.

 

[apollo1444]

Ya know, in my years of using mobile devices, seeing them in the field, and so on, SCRATCHES are not even close to being a common problem.

CRACKING is. We need glass that is resistant to shock and won't spiderweb when dropped. Current smart phone and tablet screens are already fairly resistant to scratches; I don't use a screen protector on my iPhone and I certainly don't baby it yet there are no easily visible scratches.

I think Apple is going in the wrong direction with sapphire glass. It's okay for the camera; that's a tiny piece and the camera does get abuse because it's on the back of the phone, but not for the screen!

how many millions have you invested in research about saphire and glass to come up with such facts about "apple being in the wrong direction"

 

[rmbpuser]

What if the iPhone 6 body is entirely out of sapphire? One big solid gemstone.

Imagine it could have 2 screens! No bazels!

 

[ptb42]

Is is possible to coat glass with sapphire?

Can you coat glass with sapphire, to get better scratch resistance, and still be shatter resistant?

Could GT/Apple coat Gorilla glass with sapphire, without violating any license agreements with Corning?

(sorry if these seem to be dumb questions. But, I'm curious)