Glass for Displays – Emerging Displays
August 16, 2011, Emerging Display Technologies Conference, San Jose, CA—We talked with Andrew Hemmingway and Karen Elder from Schott about the new families of glass for displays. Schott has developed new specialty glasses for touch displays. The Xensation cover glass includes versions for all types of touch screens including capacitive, resistive, optical and acoustic technologies.
The capacitive products are called Cover, the resistive-Touch, the optical-Look, and the acoustic-Sound. Together, the family represents a complete set of options for all touch-enabled electronics and displays.
The capacitive product comes in two versions, Cover, a standard floated aluminosilicate glass for higher bending strength and higher ball drop strength test resistance. The Cover product has chemical strengthening for hardness and resistance from scratches and breakage. Cover 3D is a floated lithium-alumino-silicate glass has a very low transformation temperature of 505° Celsius. The lower transformation temperature allows the use of hot forming to create 3-D surfaces. It also has surface chemical strengthening for scratch and break resistance.
The entire product line has just been announced and the final product configurations are open for customer definition. The products are in final evaluation stages and will be available in thicknesses from 0.55 to 2 mm and in panels up to 1150 x 950 mm. Additional surface coatings are available and in development for anti-glare and surface dirt and oil resistance to minimize the effects of constant touch interactions with the screens. These and other surface coatings may also help to minimize the stiction problems in touch screens.
Schott plans to offer the cover glass to volume manufacturers and will provide additional services to enable drop-in replacement of the existing cover materials.
