Corning has announced it is working on a super scratch-resistant glass which would readily rival sapphire glass. The new glass currently in development has been dubbed the ‘Project Phire‘ and it would see Gorilla Glass with near-Sapphire features such as scratch resistance.
The announcement was made at recent meeting with Investors in New York by Corning executive James Clappin. The new glass material is expected to be available to manufacturers before the end of the year.
James Clappin, President of Corning Glass Technologies Said:
“We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn’t fare well when dropped. 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.”
The company recently announced the Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which is 25% more thinner than the Gorilla Glass 3 but it still not scratch resistance with damage-resistance the only function. Corning Gorilla Glass is currently used by around 3 billion devices (smartphones, tablets, etc) around the world including those from Samsung (Galaxy Note 4 & Galaxy Note Edge) and Apple (iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus).
Project Phire shows corning is really concerned about manufactures ditching corning glass for synthetic sapphire. The project would see the Corning Glass have the best of both world – not only being damage resistant but also scratch-resistant.
We will have to wait for more official detailed information on the Project Phire from Corning in coming weeks, maybe months.
