Corning, the creators of Gorilla Glass, are showing off a thin flexible glass that could eventually lead to a new range of electronics with flexible displays. Corning's Window Glass has started to ship to customers, who develop displays and touch applications. This means that over the next couple of years, we should see some interesting - and flexible - products. Willow Glass is made using a fusion process and advanced technologies like a continuous "roll-to-roll" process that works at temperatures up to 500° C. Thanks to fusion, the glass can be rolled to only 100 microns thick, or the same thickness of a sheet of copy paper. Despite its ultra-thin design, the glass is can provide hermetic sealing for sensitive components, while also providing optical, thermal, and surface properties, Corning notes. The glass should be an ideal component for upcoming OLED displays or current High-Definition LCDs, because "it will support thinner backplanes and color filters for both organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and liquid crystal displays (LCD) in high performance, portable devices such as smartphones, tablets and notebook computers," Corning says. Imagine how easy it would be to mount a flexible display on a non-flat surface. It might sound strange right now, but it should be a reliable approach in a few years.
How Corning's Window Glass Could Spur Flexible Devices
Corning, the creators of Gorilla Glass, are showing off a thin flexible glass that could eventually lead to a new range of electronics with flexible displays. Corning's Window Glass has started to ship to customers, who develop displays and touch applications. This means that over the next couple of years, we should see some interesting - and flexible - products. Willow Glass is made using a fusion process and advanced technologies like a continuous "roll-to-roll" process that works at temperatures up to 500° C. Thanks to fusion, the glass can be rolled to only 100 microns thick, or the same thickness of a sheet of copy paper. Despite its ultra-thin design, the glass is can provide hermetic sealing for sensitive components, while also providing optical, thermal, and surface properties, Corning notes. The glass should be an ideal component for upcoming OLED displays or current High-Definition LCDs, because "it will support thinner backplanes and color filters for both organic light emitting diodes (OLED) and liquid crystal displays (LCD) in high performance, portable devices such as smartphones, tablets and notebook computers," Corning says. Imagine how easy it would be to mount a flexible display on a non-flat surface. It might sound strange right now, but it should be a reliable approach in a few years.
