Corning on Tuesday introduced its Gorilla Glass 2, the next generation of the company’s widely accepted, damage-resistant cover glass for consumer electronic devices, at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012. The new glass can enable either 20% thinner glass or, potentially, 20% better damage resistance.

“Corning Gorilla Glass has enjoyed tremendous market adoption in the high-growth mobile handset and computing device market, providing a replacement for plastic and legacy soda-lime glass as a protective cover and elegant design solution,” said James R. Steiner, senior vice president and general manager of Corning.

Corning Gorilla Glass 2 enables up to a 20% reduction in glass thickness, while maintaining the industry-leading damage resistance, toughness, and scratch resistance customers have come to expect from the world’s most widely deployed cover glass. The thinner Gorilla Glass 2 enables slimmer and sleeker devices, brighter images, and greater touch sensitivity. These benefits can provide electronics manufacturers with superior design flexibility as they address consumer demand for increasingly high-performing, touch-sensitive, and durable mobile devices.

Product qualification and design implementation for Corning Gorilla Glass 2 are underway with Corning’s global customers, a number of whom are expected to unveil new devices using Corning Gorilla Glass 2 during the coming months.

First introduced in 2007, Corning Gorilla Glass set the industry standard for damage-resistant cover glass. Today it is the most widely deployed cover glass, used by more than 30 major brands and designed into more than 575 product models, spanning more than 500 million units worldwide.

“We knew Corning Gorilla Glass could get even better. So, in response to our customers’ drive toward thinner form factors, we designed this new glass to enable meaningful reduction in thickness without sacrificing the outstanding glass performance for which Gorilla Glass has become highly recognized. This glass, along with Windows operating system innovations from Microsoft, will help deliver exceptional beauty, performance, and toughness for new Windows PCs. You will see this early this year with Windows-based PCs which we expect to be the first in-market laptops designed to leverage the performance of our new second-generation glass,” Mr. Steiner remarked.

As one of the company’s fastest growing businesses, Corning Gorilla Glass is expected to reach more than $700 million in 2011 sales, nearly triple 2010 results.

Tags: Corning, Gorilla Glass