Next-generation screen protection announced by Corning
As anyone can easily guess, Gorilla Glass 6 is a substantial improvement over its predecessor, and Corning says that it can help phones survive drops from greater heights.
In fact, the parent company even has some numbers, claiming that a phone whose display is protected by Gorilla Glass 6 should be able to withstand a total of 15 consecutive drops from 1 meter. This makes the new generation two times better than Gorilla Glass 5, according to official figures.
There’s one big reason why Corning focused specifically on improving protection against drops from 1 meter or below. The company cites a study conducted by Toluna as revealing that on average, phone owners drop their devices seven times a year, and in 50 percent of the cases, the incidents happen from this height.
“Gorilla Glass 6 is an entirely new glass composition that can be chemically strengthened to give it significantly higher levels of compression than is possible with Gorilla Glass 5. This enables Gorilla Glass 6 to be more resistant to damage,” said Dr. Jaymin Amin, vice president of technology and product development, Corning Gorilla Glass and Corning Specialty Materials.
“Moreover, with breaks during drops being a probabilistic event, the added compression helps increase, on average, the likelihood of survival through multiple drop events.”
The first models featuring Gorilla Glass 6 are projected to launch later this year, and although no specifics were provided, it’s believed that the 2018 iPhone lineup could be the first one to use it. Despite working together, Corning doesn’t list Apple as a customer, though the majority of iPhone models that launched in the last few years used Gorilla Glass as well.
