Steve Jobs' unique request - The story of corning

 Probably by now many of you are aware of Corning and their legendary Gorilla glass. For you who don’t know, it is a type of glass that is thin , yet strong and used in mobile phone screens.

For those curious readers, seeking how Gorilla glass is different from normal glass, here’s an article just for you.

 

COMPANY ORIGIN:

Corning was founded as a glass industry in 1851 in Somerville , Massachusetts, United states, with a dream to make “tough” glass.

They first started as a company making glass for light bulbs and railway signals in the late 19^th century.

By the early 90s they used their glass to make highly durable windows In cars, they called it the “muscled glass”.

 

THE REQUIREMENT:

But when the first

iPhone was conceptualized apple needed a material for their all new touch screen. They initially opted for a plastic screen as plastic is the gold standard for mobile screens at that time and even in the iPhone’s “2007 keynote” event, Steve Jobs’ prototype iPhone was made with a plastic screen, but as soon as the event ended, Steve Jobs noticed a few scratches on the screen. That made him realize that plastic is not ideal for iPhone’s durability and made him ponder about other materials to use for this case, he then came to know about corning and their dream of making tough glass, and Jobs decided to give Corning a chance to impress him with their ideas. Hence Apple contacted Corning and gave their requirement.

 

THE EXECUTION:

He requested for a durable glass screen which was both scratch resistant and reasonably shatter resistant. As a thick glass affects the touch response and thin glass affects the durability of the phone itself. A perfect middle ground was necessary.

They were given a challenge by now. As thickening the glass is not the way to go, they this time  chemically strengthened it.

They followed a process of ion exchange, by immersing the glass in  molten alkaline potassium salt at a temperature of 400 °C .

This replaced the smaller sodium ions into larger potassium ions. The larger Potassium ions made the glass more densely packed in, and hence made the glass more durable while still maintaining the thin form factor that was wanted.

Steve jobs loved the way it was executed and hence Gorilla glass was born and was first used in the iPhone 2G (AKA) the original iPhone.

 

DEVELOPMENT:

Corning did not stop there, they kept improving their Gorilla glass more and more and in each Generation they made it better in one or the other way.

 

In October 2012, they came up with the Gorilla glass 2 which was 20% thinner while still retaining its  durability. Which made the whole phone thinner. By this time they became famous around the world. But still the glass had one flaw that annoyed people in the long term usage, that is the scratch resistance.

 

Even though the battle of thin or thick glass is ended by now, the problem of soft or hard glass emerged. The property of the glass is that if it is thick then the glass would be hard to scratch but easy to break, and if the glass is soft then it would be hard to break but easy to scratch.
So even though the glass was drop resistant, it had an inherent flaw of being prone to scratches.

 

 So in the Consumer Electronics Show of CES of 2013 they unveiled the Gorilla glass 3 which had a perfect middle ground by being reasonably hard to with stand scratches yet being soft to prevent breakage. This was 40% more scratch resistance than its predecessor Gorilla glass 2.It also said to have solved minor flaws such as reflectivity, fingerprint smudges etc…

 

In the end of 2014 they announced gorilla glass 4 which was thinner than GG 3 (GG - Gorilla Glass)with having all the features of the last year’s model and also made it anti-microbial so as to maintain sanitation of the screen

 

In 2015 along with the Gorilla glass 5 came the Gorilla glass SR+ which Is used in wearables like smartwatches , it was first used in Samsung gear S3(smartwatch).

 

2 years back in the year 2020 they announced their 6^th generation Gorilla glass which remains as the latest and most durable Gorilla glass this was named as the Gorilla glass Victus which was 2 times more durable with drops as well as much more scratch resistant.

 

And with each year making a glass that is thin, light and durable, the company fulfilled its dream of making the toughest glass. But still its Journey continues. Hope you liked this article, thanks for reading please leave a comment on how is it. Till then I am is Raghunath Balaji and this is Tech passion signing off.