CORNING BOOSTS DISPLAY DURABILITY, RESISTANCE WITH VICTUS

SEEKING TO BRING IMPROVED DURABILITY TO SMARTPHONE displays, Corning developed a new version of its chemically strengthened Gorilla Glass that is reportedly 25 percent better at resisting cracks when dropped than its predecessor.

The new Gorilla Glass Victus (Latin for “way of living”) can withstand drops of up to 2 meters onto a hard, rough surface without cracking, compared to the 1.6‐meter drop performance of Gorilla Glass 6. Corning says Victus is twice as resistant to scratching as Gorilla Glass 6, and almost four times as scratch‐resistant as competitors' glass, based on lab testing with a specialized diamond point.

Samsung is the first original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to adopt Victus, which it's using for the 6.9‐inch display of its new Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G smartphone.

Gorilla Glass has been a successful product for Corning, having been designed and incorporated into more than 8 billion devices by more than 45 major brands. However, as the company focused on developing glass that could resist breakage from consumers dropping their phones, the scratch resistance of the last few generations of Gorilla Glass (4, 5, and 6) hasn't been as good compared to earlier generations, says Bob O'Brien, the co‐founder and president of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC). “Gorilla Glass 3 was all about scratch, while Gorilla Glass 4, 5, and 6 were all about drop,” he says, noting that drop resistance and scratch resistance “fundamentally work at odds with each other” when developing new glass.

Corning's research indicates that consumers in the smartphone market in the US, China, and India rank durability as the second‐most important consideration when purchasing a new phone, behind brand and ahead of other factors such as screen size, camera quality, and device thinness.

Feedback from more than 90,000 consumers also indicated that drop and scratch performance was twice as important today as it was seven years ago. As a result, the company tasked its scientists with trying to enhance both areas, according to John Bayne, Corning's senior vice president and general manager for mobile consumer electronics.

The lab results suggest that they've found success in Victus. “It's remarkable that they improved both at the same time,” O'Brien says. —Glen Dickson

From：SID-Wiley Online Library