Corning Gorilla Glass 6 With Up to 2X Better Durability Than Its Predecessor Launched

Corning has unveiled Gorilla Glass 6 as an all-new glass protection for mobile devices. As the successor to Gorilla Glass 5 that was launched back in July 2016, the new development is touted to be designed with an "entirely new material" that helps withstand multiple drops. The Corning, New York-based company emphasises that the new glass protection is its most durable cover glass to date. While the company hasn't revealed the devices featuring the new glass panel, it has confirmed that the latest creation is currently being evaluated by multiple customers - suggesting its debut sometime in the next coming months. The next-generation Galaxy Note that is scheduled to arrive on August 9 could emerge as the first handset featuring Gorilla Glass 6.

In lab tests, Corning claims that Gorilla Glass 6 survived as many as 15 drops from 1-metre height onto rough surfaces and was found to be up to two times better than Gorilla Glass 5. The company has used a new glass composition to make the fresh Gorilla Glass version capable of withstanding multiple drops. "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," said Dr. Jaymin Amin, Vice President of Technology and Product Development, Corning Gorilla Glass and Corning Specialty Materials, in a press statement while announcing the new panel. "This enables Gorilla Glass 6 to be more resistant to damage. Moreover, with breaks during drops being a probabilistic event, the added compression helps increase, on average, the likelihood of survival through multiple drop events."

Alongside offering an enhanced durability, Gorilla Glass 6 is designed with optimised "optical clarity, touch sensitivity, scratch resistance, efficient wireless charging and enhanced durability" to match modern design trends where glass panels are featured not just at the front but also at the back. Corning believes that modern smartphone designs use glass for more than 85 percent of the enclosure. This is where the newest Gorilla Glass panel helps.

"With both its aesthetic and performance advantages, glass is on the right side of the technology curve and will continue to be the material of choice for mobile consumer electronics," said Scott Forester, Division Vice President, Marketing and Innovation Products, Corning Gorilla Glass, in the statement.

Corning says that Gorilla Glass 6 is expected "to reach the market in the next several months." While the list of devices featuring the panel is yet to be revealed, the Galaxy Note 9 is likely to be the first model with the latest Gorilla Glass panel. Back in 2016, Samsung brought the Galaxy Note 7 as the first device to feature Gorilla Glass 5.

Apart from Gorilla Glass 6, Corning has announced the Gorilla Glass DX and Gorilla Glass DX+ as tough solutions for wearables. The new line of glass protection is touted to improve front surface reflection by 75 percent compared to standard glass. The company also claims that the new offerings increase the display contrast ratio by 50 percent with the same brightness level. While the Gorilla Glass DX offers the same scratch resistance of regular Gorilla Glass panel, the Gorilla Glass DX+ is claimed to provide even superior scratch resistance "approaching that of alternative luxury cover materials".