Corning Gorilla Glass 4 unveiled, two times tougher than rivals

Corning has just debuted its brand new glass technology, purportedly touting double the toughness of competitor panes.

The firm’s material science dons have tested the new glass out, and promise a survival rate of 80 per cent when devices are dropped face-down from a one meter height.

Apparently this is to simulate ‘real-world break events’, where Corning says your standard smartphone glass fare will break nearly 100 per cent of the time.

Typically smartphones have either used Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 or its less bananas counterpart, soda-lime glass.

Gorilla Glass is renowned for its toughness, although there has been much talk this year of a grand usurping by sapphire, reportedly intended for use in Apple’s iPhone 6 – an idea since scrapped.

The new Gorilla Glass 4 promises to be tougher still however, and should earn its place on the next raft of flagship smartphones.

James R. Steiner, Senior VP and General Manager, said: “Corning Gorilla Glass has outperformed competing materials such as soda-lime glass and other strengthened, since it was introduced in 2007, and we’re always innovating to push the limits of what glass can do.”

“With Gorilla Glass 4, we have focused on significantly improving protection against sharp contact damage, which is the primary reason that mobile devices break.”

He added: “Dropping and breaking a phone is a common problem, and one that our customers have asked us to help address.”

Corning used its own fusion draw process to make the new glass, meaning the panels maintain thinness, durability, and optical clarity – all boons to any smartphone design structure.

40 manufacturers have made use of Gorilla Glass so far, which amounts to somewhere around 1400 individual products, and upwards of 3 billion devices worldwide.

Corning says samples and shipments for Gorilla Glass 4 have already begun, so we could be seeing smartphones with the hardy fare very soon.

The announcement comes at an interesting time, as the spec sheet for the Microsoft Lumia 940 leaked earlier this month promising the device would land with Gorilla Glass 4 – before it was officially announced.

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