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Corning’s newest Gorilla Glass can now survive a one-meter drop on concrete
When Samsung publicizes its Galaxy S23 lineup in February, it might need the hardest screens on a smartphone but — as a result of Corning’s just-announced Gorilla Glass Victus 2 can take a much bigger beating than ever. For the primary time, Corning is promoting that your cellphone ought to have the ability to survive a one-meter (waist-high) drop on concrete particularly, some of the notoriously troublesome surfaces to guard in opposition to.
Corning wouldn’t say if there was a particular breakthrough in supplies science that now lets telephones survive drops on concrete — relatively, it seems like a selection. Gorilla Glass division VP Scott Forester tells me the corporate actively determined to guard in opposition to concrete with this era of glass, adjusting the composition and “stress profiles” till engineers discovered one thing they had been happy with.
Why concrete, particularly? It’s what cellphone makers had been asking for. “Over 30 % of the drops they had been having had been on concrete, greater than some other floor,” says Forester.
It wasn’t all the time that method. Even a few years again, “it was about survival on clean surfaces,” Forester says. However as smartphone glass received stronger, individuals wouldn’t wind up cracking their telephones till they dropped them on rougher pavement. “What we discovered over time is about 75 % of the drop failures come on tough surfaces — asphalt or tough granite or concrete for that matter,” he provides.
Now, concrete is the largest remaining ache level that Corning can attempt to cross off the record.
The load and measurement of a cellphone is one other factor that’s modified through the years. They’re 15 % heavier and 10 % bigger than they had been 4 years in the past, in response to Corning estimates. The corporate says its checks account for these adjustments: to simulate the impression of a cellphone on concrete, it now repeatedly drops a puck that weighs about 200 grams (seven ounces) facedown onto a bit of 80-grit sandpaper atop a tough floor. 2 hundred grams is roughly the identical weight as a midsize Samsung S22 Plus, although there are definitely heavier telephones in the marketplace.
Talking of Samsung, it hasn’t been confirmed fairly but that the Korean electronics large will likely be utilizing the brand new glass. Corning introduced that Samsung could be its first shopper for Gorilla Glass Victus in 2020, whereas Apple opted to companion with Corning by itself unique “Ceramic Defend” glass as an alternative.
However in 2020, Corning instructed me that the glass would first seem on a flagship cellphone “within the subsequent few months,” and that’s the very same wording that Forester used as effectively. Victus 2 will likely be coming to “some very giant OEMs within the subsequent few months, totally on their flagship telephones,” and Samsung is the largest producer anticipated to launch flagship telephones in that window. I suppose we’ll see, although — perhaps Samsung will announce one other new unique glass for itself.
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