Inside Gorilla Glass tempered glass laboratory

CNET reporter visited the lab of one of the most famous screen glass manufacturers today: Corning.

In order to find out about the two types of current screen glasses, Gorilla Glass and Sapphire, we will "rummage" past facts.

First, Gorilla Glass was researched and developed by Corning, the company has 163 years of experience working with glass. Corning is also the producer of the first Thomas Edison bulbs. In 2007, Gorilla Glass first appeared in public on Apple's iPhone 2G. After 7 years of existence and development, this toughened glass has now been produced to the 3rd generation and is present on nearly 2.7 billion mobile devices worldwide.

In the past few years, Gorilla Glass's position has been seriously threatened by an opponent, introduced and developed by Apple itself, called "Sapphire" . Sapphire stands out with the advantage of a high hardness material just behind diamonds. Sapphire is more beautiful and has many advantages when used to make mobile device screens.

To learn more about the specific differences between these two glass screens, technology journalist CNET made a "visit" to Corning's durability testing facility.

Corning's experimental headquarters is a modest building with a mix of gray and green colors. Most of the surrounding space is tightly controlled, visitors must sign an agreement to avoid disclosing Corning's information out.

Going into one of the main labs, it is easy to see that many devices are placed along the white walls. The technical staff is doing the work of testing the durability of glass panels such as bending, piercing or scratching.

When interviewing technical staff, reporters learned more about Corning's success. The company often conducts experiments with different design philosophies to ensure the highest quality products when shipped. As a result, the company can anticipate and adapt to the rapidly growing speed of the technology world.

Corning Lab has state-of-the-art equipment to conduct research and experiment with glass panels

Reporters were Corning scientist Kevin Reiman and tour guide, taking out and introducing a small, 0.5mm square glass of glass using synthetic Sapphire material.

After that, Kevin conducted experiments with this Sapphire. First, take it out and rub it lightly with sandpaper. Unexpectedly, the piece of glass is still intact, without a small scratch after being rubbed. Song, when Reiman placed this Sapphire on the table and pressed it with metal rods (the size of a pencil), it broke into small pieces.

To compare the difference between the 2 crystals, the reporter team was given a piece of glass with the same shape and size, only the material is made of Gorilla Glass. The results showed a complete contrast. With a sandpaper test, Gorilla Glass glass is more scratched, but it shows a higher durability when completely unresponsive under the pressure of metal bars.

According to Remain, unlike Sapphire, Gorilla Glass crystals are not easily broken and retain a solid structure even if they are scratched or broken on the outside. Although Sapphire is more impressive and difficult to scratch under many impacts, they are quite fragile and fragile if used to make protective goggles for mobile devices.

It is not simple that Corning can succeed and survive so long. The company has always invested, researched and developed. Corning studied the causes of cracks, thus offering solutions to improve the next generation's solid glass panels.

Gorilla Glass is still leading the mobile device screen glass market (with 80% market share). But now, in addition to the threat from rival Sapphire, Gorilla Glass is also suffering from fierce competition from new models such as Asahi Glass of Dragontrail, Nippon Electric Glass from Japan, Schott of Germany or KMTC of China.

According to many analysts, Sapphire glass will be the future of technology devices. This material has been gradually introduced into technology devices, but currently Sapphire is only used to make the Camera or Home button on the iPhone. Therefore, researchers still have to work for a longer time to get Sapphire to replace Gorilla Glass.