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ncd

Hardened glass like the virtually-ubiquitous Gorilla Glass from Corning has made capacitive touchscreens the standard way of interacting with a smartphone. It's constantly improving, likewise. Gorilla Drinking glass is resistant to scratching, and newer screens won't crack nearly as hands every bit they have in years past. It doesn't have any bling, though. A company called Akhan Semiconductor says that information technology's shut to releasing a diamond coating for drinking glass that would be even more durable than Gorilla Drinking glass.

Corning, which recently announced Gorilla Glass 5, makes the drinking glass for near every high-end smartphone including the Galaxy S7 and new Note7. Apple also uses hardened glass from Corning, but doesn't like to talk specifics. Akhan Semiconductor says that its Akhan Miraj NCD diamond (that'due south quite a mouthful) material is four times as scissure-resistant and seven times equally scratch-proof compared to Gorilla Drinking glass.

Diamond, being the hardest cloth known, is a natural choice when you want to make something durable. Information technology'due south non the first place electronics companies looked, though. Sapphire drinking glass has been slowly making its way into mobile devices like the Apple Watch and a few ruggedized phones. Apple famously wanted to equip the iPhone with a sapphire glass screen several years agone, but the company that was gear up to supply that glass, GT Avant-garde Technologies, was unable to produce it in sufficient volume and eventually went out of business.

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Akhan Semiconductor says that its diamond glass is really cheaper and easier to produce than sapphire. Scientists have been able to create synthetic diamonds for years, so that'southward no trouble now. What sets the NCD diamond autonomously is that it's only a very thin layer on top of regular UV glass manufactured past Corning. It substantially grows the diamond on a glass substrate via an inexpensive process called chemical vapor deposition. The diamond component is 800 times thinner than a Gorilla Glass 5 panel and stronger than a pane of sapphire drinking glass.

That all sounds great, simply diamond screens could be challenging to implement for some of the aforementioned reasons sapphire hasn't taken off. Because diamond is harder, it won't scratch, simply it tin shatter. Akhan claims the thinness of the diamond makes upwards for that, assuasive the panel to be slightly flexible (see above). Reflectivity is too an issue with materials similar sapphire and diamond. Once again, Akhan says this won't be a trouble because information technology "tunes" the crystals to lower the alphabetize of refraction.

As for when y'all'll see a Akhan Miraj NCD diamond display, that's up in the air. Akhan Semiconductor thinks it tin can accept the technology to produce the glass at scale within a year, but information technology's looking for licensing partners to actually do the product. It'due south even possible Corning volition bite.