Corning SVP Tony Tripeny has hit out at Apple's decision to switch from using glass to sapphire crystal, claiming it will increase the cost and reduce performance of future iPhones.
Speaking at a Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference, Tripeny was asked about the material that is widely expected to be used by Apple in its 2014 version of the iPhone. The SVP claimed, aside from the "sexy" name for marketing, there are many disadvantages to using sapphire including its weight, price, difficulty to manufacture, and lack of transparency.
"When we look at it, we see a lot of disadvantages of Sapphire versus Gorilla Glass. It's about 10 times more expensive. It's about 1.6 times heavier. It's environmentally unfriendly. It takes about 100 times more energy to generate a Sapphire crystal than it does glass. It transmits less light which means either dimmer devices or shorter battery life," he told attendees, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha.
Tripeny also claimed sapphire is not going to be any tougher than glass, despite perceptions of it being harder to break, and claimed it's not cost effective.
"The formation [of sapphire] takes about 4,000 times longer than Gorilla Glass at a significantly higher melting temperature. Its hardness makes machining more difficult and costly," he continued.
"Then the cost per unit increases exponentially because when you have defects in boundaries in the crystal growth process, you essentially cut them out and so unlike glass where we have developed technologies so that we can have very large pristine pieces of glass, when you have that on crystals, what you end up doing is always having a yield issue. So it is really those items that make things more expensive."
Although the SVP acknowledged the scratch resistant nature of sapphire, he claimed Gorilla Glass is capable of withstanding 2.5 times more pressure.
Corning's Gorilla Glass is found in over 2,400 products - including high-end devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, Moto X and Nokia Lumia 1020. However, it is believed Apple no longer uses the firm having switched to another glass supplier in the run up to the iPhone 4's release.
The fourth generation of Gorilla Glass is expected to land in 2014.
