Glassmaker Corning on Friday unveiled "Project Phire," a glass composite that the company says is just as strong and drop-resistant as its latest Gorilla Glass but nearly as scratch-resistant as sapphire.
"We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn't fare well when dropped," Corning executive James Clappin said during Project Phire's unveiling at an investor event, according to CNET. "So, we created a product that offers the same superior damage resistance and drop performance of Gorilla Glass 4 with scratch resistance that approaches sapphire."
Clappin added that Corning expects Project Phire to go on sale later this year, but did not elaborate further.
Corning's Gorilla Glass business, which the company restarted in 2007 at the request of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, has been under assault in recent months from sapphire activists who want to see the mercurial material replace hardened glass in smartphones. Apple struck a $578 million deal with sapphire equipment manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies in late 2013, a sign that many took to mean Corning would find itself on the outside looking in for the iPhone 6.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus did not ship with sapphire-covered displays, however, and the GTAT deal famously went bust less than a year later. Apple's interest in the material was seemingly explained with the unveiling of the Apple Watch — Â which does use sapphire in some models — Â and the record-breaking number of iPhones that ship with sapphire in their camera lens covers and Touch ID sensors, but that has not tamped down sapphire proponents' enthusiasm.
Sapphire is indeed extremely hard and scratch-resistant, but also quite brittle and shatters relatively easily. The material is notoriously difficult to work with as well, as Vertu executive Hutch Hutchison told AppleInsider last year.
"As with any high-tech material, sapphire crystal has its own unique set of problems," Hutchison said. "It is slow, expensive and energy intensive to produce. It can take two weeks to grow each boules and the yield from each is low. It is also very difficult to cut, grind and polish; diamond tools have to be used for all of these processes."
Corning's announcement of the new composite material comes nearly three months after the company unveiled Gorilla Glass 4, a new generation of the strengthened glass that Corning says will survive drops onto rough surfaces up to 80 percent of the time. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are thought to use the previous-generation Gorilla Glass 3.
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I look forward to seeing this glass composite on a 4.2" iPhone this year or next.
This just in: Corning continues to deride a product that's a threat to its business.
If Jony wants it, Jony gets it. As for the diamond tools, Apple already solved that problem when they developed new tools for cutting the chamfered edges on the previous generation Apple products.
I think this will be the company to make a go of it, if sapphire were to ever happen as promised. One of the truly great companies of the world. Glad I own some GLW! :-) (As an aside, and fwiw, someone in the know mentioned almost two years ago that they had worked on it, and that Apple was barking up the wrong tree with GTAT and sapphire, since it was not ready for prime time yet. I was not sure how to evaluate that info then, but I guess, by hindsight, that person was right!)
Competition is good. Let the best man win.
[quote name="TheWhiteFalcon" url="/t/184693/corning-takes-shot-at-sapphire-with-project-phire-ultra-scratch-resistant-glass#post_2672466"]This just in: Corning continues to deride a product that's a threat to its business. [/quote] You are certainly welcome to think what you will, but they haven't been around, and innovated, for 150 years for nothing. Apple is not the only great company in the world.