Materials Innovation Case Study: Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 for Consumer Electronics SUMMARY Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 is a notable materials innovation that occurred over a compressed, 22-month time period—an achievement facilitated by Corning’s depth of modeling capability, experience with prior Gorilla Glass products, and direct control over the major elements of the innovation process. The following case study explores the specific actions that led to this success through the development of a “reverse roadmap,” which captures and classifies the key activities that either accelerated or inhibited the innovation process. Gorilla Glass has indeed been a commercial BACKGROUND success for Corning—recently, Gorilla Glass 4 was While it is now a household name, Corning’s introduced to extend the product line. At the end Gorilla Glass has only been used in consumer of 2015, Corning’s Gorilla Glass had been used in applications for less than 10 years. In fact, the first over 4.5 billion devices, including smartphones, 4 generation of the glass—which resists breakage tablets, notebook computers, and smartwatches, and scratching thanks to a chemical treatment as well as extended applications such as interior applied by an ion exchange process1—was architecture and design, markerboards, and developed for Apple’s first iPhone, launched automotive glass and touch panels. in 2007. When Gorilla Glass 2 was introduced in 2012, it achieved the market’s desire for a REVERSE ROADMAP thinner product at a size 20% thinner than its predecessor.2 The materials innovation process employed to develop Gorilla Glass 3 is outlined in a “reverse In its third iteration, Gorilla Glass 3 is even roadmap,” which captures events that have stronger, thinner, and more scratch resistant. In already occurred, as compared with a traditional addition to the chemically strengthened surface, forward-looking roadmap. The reverse roadmap is bulk composition tailoring has been employed to presented on a time scale divided into four major create Native Damage Resistance (NDR), which categories: Design, Development, Manufacturing, has resulted in a glass three times more damage and Deployment. The analytical framework in resistant than Gorilla Glass 2.3 The glass is also Figure 1 outlines the general structure of the provides the additional advantage of being more reverse roadmap and can be applied to materials resistant to deep scratches that might otherwise innovation processes across a broad range of initiate breakage. materials, applications, and markets.5 1Walton, D, Amin, J, and N. Shashidhar. 2010. “Specialty Glass: A New Design Element in Consumer Electronics.” 2Guglielmo, C. 2013. “Corning, After Thinning out Gorilla Glass, Makes New Generation Tougher.” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ connieguglielmo/2013/01/10/corning-after-thinning-out-gorilla-glass-makes-new-generation-tougher/#4938a9373d223a2bf3ea3d22. 3Corning. http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/en/glass-types/gorilla-glass-3-with-ndr, accessed 01/20/16. 4Corning. http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/en/products-with-gorilla, accessed 01/20/16. 5“Quantitative Benchmark for Time to Market (QBTM) for New Materials Innovation”, Report by Nexight Group and Energetics, Inc., January 2016. Materials Innovation Case Study: Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 for Consumer Electronics 1 MANUFACTURING Figure 1. Analytical Framework for Time to Market for Materials Innovation STAGE ONE STAGE TWO STAGE THREE STAGE FOUR DESIGN DEVELOPMENT MANUFACTURING DEPLOYMENT SYNTHESIS OF LAB TRIALS OF SELECTED ST ST ST INTENT TO SEEK A ST SCALE CANDIDATE MATERIALS NEW MATERIAL FOR A MATERIAL AR AR AR AR COMPOSITION/ A COMMERCIAL GIVEN APPLICATION COMPOSITION(S) OR MICROSTRUCTURE MATERIAL PRODUCT IS TP TP TP OR END USE IS TP MICROSTRUCTURE(S) AND SYNTHESIS AT AVAILABLE ARTICULATED FOR APPLICATION OR PRODUCTION SCALE END-USE TESTING FOR MANUFACTURING ROCESS ROCESS ROCESS ROCESS APPLICATION- SCALE-UP, INCLUDING PRODUCTION TRIALS, MODELING AND SPECIFIC TAILORING LAB AND PILOT SCALE PRODUCT AND EXPERIMENTATION AT AND SUPPORTING SYNTHESIS AND PROCESS EVALUATION BENCH OR LAB SCALE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION. AND MODIFICATION DEVELOPMENT. A MATERIALS COMPOSITION/ A PRODUCTION- END END END END SCALE PROCESS AND CANDIDATE MATERIAL MICROSTRUCTURE AND THE COMPLETE RESULTING PRODUCT COMPOSITION(S) OR SYNTHESIS APPROACH PRODUCT IS USED IN ARE FINALIZED MICROSTRUCTURE(S) ARE IDENTIFIED THE FIRST COMMERCIAL AND STANDARDS/ ARE IDENTIFIED FOR TRANSITION APPLICATION. TO COMMERCIAL SPECIFICATIONS MANUFACTURING SCALE ESTABLISHED The reverse roadmap includes four primary elements: DISCUSSION 11. Activities that occurred over time The value chain for this materials innovation was largely within Corning, which has the capability 22. Discrete events occurred at a specific point for the production or at least simulation of all in time (e.g., milestone) of the necessary processes to move through all four stages outlined in Figure 2. External work by 33. Factors that decreased the time needed other companies that perform the ion exchange to complete an activity (or, “accelerators”), treatment to impart compressive surface stresses which are shown to the right of an activity as well as end-use customers involved in evaluating pointing backwards in time material samples is important for commercial 44. Factors that increased the time needed to realization, but did not markedly influence the complete an activity (or, “inhibitors”), which innovation process and timeline. Additional detail are shown to the left of an activity pointing on the activities that occurred in each of the four ahead in time. stages is included in the text that follows. Materials Innovation Case Study: Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 for Consumer Electronics 2 Figure 2. Reverse Roadmap for Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 Materials Innovation STAGE ONE STAGE TWO STAGE THREE STAGE FOUR DESIGN DEVELOPMENT MANUFACTURING DEPLOYMENT 2011 2012 2013 JFMAMJJASONDJFMAMJJASONDJFMAMJJASOND Establishment of customer targets Development of performance models based on topological AVAILABILITY OF MODELS COMMITTED EFFORT IN FUNDAMENTAL constraint theory and existing databases AS A FUNCTION OF GLASS RESEARCH THAT PROVIDES HIGH QUALITY COMPOSITION DATA AS WELL AS MODELS Coupling of models for performance and manufacturing ICME APPROACH UTILIZING with cost modeling PHYSICS-BASED, “BEST AVAILABLE” MODELS Establishment of customer targets Model composition melted and manufactured in EMPIRICAL MODELING PRODUCTION-SCALE MELTING EXPERIENCE WITH OF THE EFFECTS OF production-scale tank at Harrodsburg, KY IN SMALLER MELTERS (CF. TO PRIOR GORILLA GLASS COMPOSITION ON FLOAT GLASS PRODUCTION) COMPOSITIONS FORMATION OF FUSION LINE ZIRCONIA DEFECT Statistical “red flag” testing of product to determine product attributes MANUFACTURING IN PRODUCTION-SCALE EQUIPMENT Sampling of product to customers for testing AVAILABILITY OF PRODUCT MADE USING FULL-SCALE MANUFACTURING PROCESS Establishment of Ion Exchange (IOX) parameters at third party glass finishers AVAILABLE MODELS ABILITY TO DO THE TESTING FOR THE ION ON PRODUCTION-SCALE EXCHANGE PROCESS MATERIALS Production of new composition in additional production- scale melting facilities in Corning network AVAILABILITY OF A LARGE FLEET OF PRIOR WORK ON SMALLER MELTERS (CF. TO FLOAT GLASS PRODUCTION-SCALE MELTER PRODUCTION) IN CORNING SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPMENT PHASE Developed procedures for tank start-up and glass composition transition to improve long term manufacturability DISCOVERY OF GLASS TREATMENT PROCESS APPROACH PER PATENTS Adjusting product to customer needs based on specific device design NO REQUIREMENTS DEVICE-LEVEL FOR SPECIFICATIONS LEGEND MODELING OR STANDARDS ACCELERATOR Discrete event MARKET EXPERIENCE WITH GG1 AND GG2 INHIBITOR Activity over time Materials Innovation Case Study: Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 for Consumer Electronics 3 Design Stage enabled by the fact that the samples had been produced using commercial-scale equipment and In the Design stage, a series of parallel activities processes. Also included in this stage was work on occurred over a period of approximately four establishing the parameters for the ion exchange months. This stage was facilitated by the (IOX) process that is employed to impart the experience gained from the development of the compressive surface stresses that contribute to the previous two versions of Gorilla Glass. In addition, damage resistance of Gorilla Glass. This activity the breadth of data and models available to was accelerated by having models in place for the Corning as a result of the company’s strong and ion exchange process. ongoing commitment to fundamental research served as an accelerator. For example, the Manufacturing Stage availability of models—specifically, performance models based on topological constraint theory6— The Manufacturing stage occurred over a short enabled Corning to more quickly determine which timeframe of approximately three months. It was materials compositions could best meet the greatly accelerated by the use of the production- specific customer requirements identified. scale melter during the Development process, and essentially involved implementation of the process Also critical to the efficiency of this stage was the developed in the prior stage at other production use of an integrated computational materials facilities with similar melting equipment. The engineering (ICME) approach that incorporated procedure for tank start-up as well as transitions both materials design for performance and between glass