Corning’s love affair with Apple looked like it was heading for a break-up earlier this year. Having provided the protective touchscreens for every
iPhone since 2007, the Gorilla Glass brass were all but sure they were
being ditched in favor of sapphire crystal, set to be
supplied by Apple’s hot new partner, GT Advanced Technologies.
Before going into bankruptcy, GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) was considered as a primary threat for Corning (GLW). There were rumors that GT might land design wins in the iPhone and the Apple (AAPL) Watch. However, the bankruptcy seems to have tilted the balance in Corning's favor.
“Sapphire is a really, really nice
material that’s very good for reducing scratches,” Dave Velasquez,
Corning’s director of marketing and commercial ops, told Cult of Mac.
“However, we feel very strongly that glass is the best material for
touch panel cover glass. When you weigh up everything from cost to
drop-testing, to the amount of energy that’s needed to make it, in our
opinion Gorilla Glass is clearly the best material to use.”Although the concept has been around since the 1960s, and
Gorilla Glass has been marketed as a brand by Corning since 2011, the
technology has been linked to Apple since the iPhone’s beginning. When
Steve Jobs began looking for a glass manufacturer for the iPhone in
2006, he spoke with a former Xerox PARC friend named John Seely Brown,
who was on Corning’s board of directors. Brown advised Jobs to speak
with Corning’s young and exciting CEO, Wendell Weeks.
Sapphire
might have captured all the buzz in the run-up to the iPhone 6 and
Apple Watch, but Gorilla Glass is still the substance most of us tap and
swipe on a daily basis.
In addition to Apple, Gorilla Glass covers the front of practically every high-end smartphone and tablet on the planet. Named for its toughness and durability, Gorilla Glass
is an artificially strengthened material, made by dipping glass into a
molten salt bath of potassium nitrate. Potassium ions in the salt bath
diffuse into the glass, creating a hardened compression layer on the
surface.
(Source)
(Source)
As sapphire is more durable, slimmer and scratch resistant, it is also
costlier to produce, but in mass production, its cost can be brought
down if a big-name manufacturer would be willing to make the switch.
Investors were expecting Apple to solve this problem, but even Apple
didn't switch to sapphire, thereby putting sapphire's future in doubt.
Even though sapphire has been used in smartphones for certain functions
such as home buttons and as the camera lens, there is no one going
mainstream with it.
Sapphire was subjected to a drop test in order to be checked for its
superiority over Gorilla Glass. The results were in favor of sapphire,
as it was 25% stronger than Gorilla Glass and more scratch resistant. On
the other hand, sapphire also showed a tendency to shatter when dropped
from just under one meter, whereas Gorilla Glass requires three times
the force to shatter. Hence, being thin and brittle was a disadvantage
to sapphire. Therefore, it was found that sapphire has no major
advantages over Gorilla Glass, as the scratch resistance was offset by
strength. (Source)