New York-based Corning, the developer behind Gorilla Glass, has unveiled a new type of flexible ultra-thin glass dubbed "Willow Glass." The new type of glass was showcased at the Society for Information Display's Display Week, and industry trade show held in Boston. According to Corning, the new Willow Glass can be "wrapped" around a device.
In addition to smartphones, the new glass could also be used for displays that are not flat, said the company. Until such screens make their way to the market, however, the Willow Glass could benefit today's mobile devices, especially considering the trend to make them increasingly slimmer.
Thinner Glass for Slimmer Devices
"Displays become more pervasive each day and manufacturers strive to make both portable devices and larger displays thinner," said Corning's Willow Glass program director Dipak Chowdhury.
The prototype showcased at the industry trade show in Boston was as thin as a sheet of paper, and Corning said it can be made to be as thin as 0.05mm, which is thinner than the current 0.2mm or 0.05mm displays. The company has already started sending out samples to customers developing new display and touch technology.
Willow Glass is made from a material obtained through the company's glassmaking process - Fusion. The Fusion process consists of melting the ingredients at 500C, then producing a continuous sheet that can be rolled out in a mechanism like a printing press, BBC News reports. According to the company, this roll-to-roll method is both easier and faster for mass production compared to the sheet-to-sheet process normally used to develop super-thin glass.
Gorilla Glass Successor
In the future, Corning's new Willow Glass may come as the next-generation Gorilla Glass, replacing the popular protection found on numerous smartphones and tablets. The company unveiled Gorilla Glass 2 at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gorilla Glass 2 is 20 percent thinner than the original product, but offers the same strength.
Corning launched the first-generation of Gorilla Glass back in 2007, and since then it has been used on more than 575 products by 33 manufacturers, covering more than half a billion devices worldwide, notes the BBC. Apple founder and iconic leader Steve Jobs was the first to take interest in the technology, and contacted Corning in 2006, when Apple was developing the screen for its very first iPhone.
