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Foldable phones like Samsung's Galaxy Fold and Huwaei's Mate are coming, whether you're ready or not. In fact, they're coming together, they're ready or not. The software remains untested or nonexistent. The prices are either astronomical or unannounced. But those potential issues can be fixed on the fly. The real thing you should hold out for? Glass.
Yes, glass. The stuff you're using when you're on your smartphone. Glass is strong, and durable, and hard to scratch and easy to see through the bright and shiny OLED pixels below. Glass can be folded, probably more than you'd think. But it can not flex far enough for smartphones that open up like books. At least, not yet.
"Glass today, they are not optimal" for folding smartphones, says John Bayne, who heads up giant glass Corning's Gorilla Glass business. "In a glass solution, you're really challenging the laws of physics, but you need to find a solution that will help you to survive."
Instead, the early folding manufacturers are leaning on plastic polymers. Which makes sense that the materials can not be bend as far as you'd need, they can do so repeatedly; Samsung claims its so-called Infinity Flex Display can with millions of openings and closings.
"The polymer is better at flexibility; "It's easier to bend at the same thickness," says John Mauro, a professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State University.
But plastic is also, as you go, have a lot of things. It's much less hard than glass, which makes it easier to scratch and ding up. And unlike glass, plastic will be a problem, leaving you with a wide unfolding display, sure, but one with an unsightly wrinkle.
"With the polymer, the molecules can be changed more easily," said Mauro, "the glass has a more rigid structure, so the response of the glass is going to be more elastic," says Mauro. "The structure of the glass will be able to recover after the deformations."
Do not take two glass guys' word for it. "The fact that you're touching [that kind of display] with your nails is scratching it, "Motorola executive Dan Dery told Engadget in a recent interview, about a plastic film cover his company had prototyped. "It has a short life right away; it starts dying the day you unpack it. "
Or just look at how Samsung, Huawei, and others have staged the introduction of their foldable devices. Reporters have not been allowed to do so, because the software is not fully baked, but also because of the display of the smartphone. They 've largely confirmed, though, that the difference is noticeable. It will only become more so over time.
Which means that foldable smartphones will not be ready until Fortunately, that may be sooner than you'd think. Corning is working on ultra thin bendable glass that's 0.1 millimeter thick, and can bend to a 5 millimeter radius. The trick, though, is achieving that kind of pinch without losing the toughness that makes glass great to begin with.
"The back of the problem we're trying to break, the technical challenge," he says, "can be kept tight 3-5mm bend radii and also increase the damage resistance of the glass," says Bayne. "That's the trajectory we're on."
Corning
To get there, Corning is combining its experience with Willow glass, which can be rolled up like a ream of paper, and Gorilla Glass, which gets its strength from an exchange process. In fact, it's that process that makes Willow Glass unsuitable for phones. It involves dipping glass into a molten salt solution, where potassium ions enter and push out smaller sodium ions, creating a "compressive stress layer." To borrow an example from Corning think of what would happen if you replaced the billiards balls in a rack tennis balls, which are slightly larger. The additional compression would make it much harder to roll the rack. In a sense, it's stronger. But it also comes at a cost.
"In a display application, you're putting transistors on the glass. Halt salt transistors: Sodium, Potassium, anything from the salt to a transistor, "says Bayne. "For this family of glasses to work with these components in the glass that are incompatible with transistors."
Corning's ultrathin bendable glass, but not quite yet. "We have glasses we've sampled to customers, and they're functional, but they're not quite meeting the requirements," says Bayne. "People want better performance against a drop event or a tighter bend radius. We can give them one or the other; the key is to give them both. "
Bayne expects foldable smartphones go mainstream, say a couple of years. Mauro Corning thinkers and competitors like Japan's AGC may be even closer than that. But the important thing for you is that it's not here now. Until it is, maybe spend that $ 1,980 on something a little more fully baked.
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