Project Phire: even better than sapphire for our mobile

Corning announced Friday the development of a more advantageous material as sapphire, which will create more resistant smartphones than ever.

 Corning is a US company that provides 40 brands of mobile devices reinforced glass. Its flagship product, Gorilla Glass, team 3 billion outstanding devices including Samsung Galaxy and Apple iPhone (it is not specified on their product descriptions but the brand appears in the list of Apple’s suppliers) .

 Last year came a material threat to Corning supremacy in the market of mobile devices: sapphire. Apple specifically confirmed in January 2014 to partner with GT Advanced Technologies specialist to manufacture synthetic sapphire in its own factory in Arizona. If GT had not encountered production problems, the iPhone 6 have been equipped with screens of sapphire. Otherwise, the sensor and the dorsal Fingerprint Sensor Touch ID Apple products are covered with sapphire. The screen of the Apple Watch Sport, the aluminum entry-level model will be glass “Ion-X” (barely concealed reference to the ion exchange process of Corning Gorilla Glass), but that of Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition of steel and gold will be sapphire.

 The best of both worlds

 Sapphire is commonly used for glass high-end watches because it’s the second hardest material in the world, and therefore more resistant to scratches behind the diamond. But it is not very resistant to falls, like Corning has worked to explain to sing the praises of its new Gorilla Glass 4, at its launch in November 2014.

 Corning is preparing to offer the best of both. James Clappin, CEO of Corning, presented Friday at a meeting with shareholders, “Project Phire”. This new composite material promises to offer both the same drop resistance that Gorilla Glass 4 and scratch resistance “approaching” that of sapphire.

 A phone with glass “Phire” would therefore have 80% chance to emerge unscathed from a fall of 1 m, while being able to rub safely a bunch of keys in a pocket. Corning will deliver its customers by the end of the year.

Project Phire: even better than sapphire for our mobile