Corning ‘Project Phire’ – Screens With Similar Scratch Resistance to Sapphire

Corning, the makers of the famous Gorilla Glass that covers most major smartphones, has announced their latest product – ‘Project Phire’, their attempt to make a form of Gorilla Glass that has a scratch resistance “approaching sapphire”. Corning Glass president James Clappin revealed the new product during an investors meeting, declaring the robustness of the company’s new product.

“We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn’t fare well when dropped,” Clappin, president of Corning Glass Technologies, told the crowd at the event. “So, we created a product that offers the same superior damage resistance and drop performance of Gorilla Glass 4 with scratch resistance that approaches sapphire.”

It’s no surprise that they’ve come up with this. A year ago, amid rumours that Apple was almost definitely including sapphire screens with its next iPhones, Corning will have no doubt been scrambling to do something to maintain its stronghold on the global smartphone market.

Luckily for Corning, Apple’s sapphire supplier, GT Advanced, failed to produce sapphire good enough for Apple’s specifications. Despite that, while many saw Apple’s potential use of sapphire as the death knell of Gorilla Glass, it seems that Corning may have saved themselves even if Apple had managed to use the material on the iPhone by developing this new product.

Source: MacRumors