With the help of Corning Glass, Jobs opened the era of mobile Internet. What everyone doesn't know is that for Corning Glass, this is the fourth time that it has participated in changing the world.
Emory Horton/Kloc-was born in the United States in the 0/9th century and has been engaged in the business of wood and building materials. Horton gradually felt that it was easy to be eliminated without core technology, and then he met a craftsman who made glass. It turns out that making a piece of glass also requires so many technical skills, so he decided to enter the glass industry. 185 1 year, Wanzhou glass company was established. Later, as the company moved to Corning City, new york, its name was changed to "Corning Company" which we are now familiar with.
Corning is the largest manufacturer of special glass and ceramic materials in the world. From the beginning, Corning regarded the core technology as the foundation of the company's survival, and pursued technology and innovation almost fanatically. Since its establishment nearly 170 years ago, Corning has never slackened its research and development, whether it is prosperous or declining. Corning insists on spending about 10% of its income on technological innovation every year. Even in the most difficult stage like the Great Depression, R&D investment has not stopped.
Corning's focus is not something that ordinary companies can do. In the 100 years since its establishment, it only focused on the field of materials and never considered diversification. Adhering to the spirit of artisans, focusing on the field, sticking to the end and achieving the ultimate product are Corning's "core technology" and the secret of Corning's standing.
1880, after thousands of experiments, Edison finally found a suitable filament to make his electric lamp shine continuously. This year, the real electric light was born. However, Edison encountered problems in the commercialization of electric light. The glass cover outside the light bulb costs too much. Ordinary people simply can't afford this price.
By chance, Edison found Corning Company. With profound technical accumulation and bold innovation, Corning finally produced a lampshade product that is both cheap and meets the requirements, and since then, mankind has entered the era of electric light. Corning contributed to the invention of electric light, and in return, Corning ruled the electric light industry for forty years.
1946, USA? ZhuoErJin made the world's first black-and-white TV set that can be used in real families. CRT is the core part of TV, and the electron gun uses tens of kilovolts to accelerate the electron beam. In order to resist the high-speed electron beam, the glass of TV screen and CRT shell must have the characteristics of firmness, high temperature resistance and absorption of excess electrons so as not to leak.
Such an arduous task naturally belongs to Corning. 1947, Corning invented and mass-produced kinescope, and TV really came into people's field of vision.
In the communication industry, optical fiber plays an increasingly important role with its advantages of fast transmission speed, large transmission capacity and low energy consumption. 1966, physicist Charles Kao put forward the basic principle of optical fiber application in communication, and optical fiber materials are the basis to realize this application. 1970, corning developed an optical fiber material with a transmission loss of only 17db/km, and successfully drew this glass into a filament, which is the first optical fiber in the world. Until now, Corning is still the largest optical fiber manufacturer in the world.
In 2006, the research and development of iphone entered the final stage. For the ultimate touch experience, Jobs applied the capacitive screen to the mobile phone, and the protection of the touch screen became a problem. Traditional plastic materials are easily scratched, so covering them with glass has become the only choice. But who can make glass that can meet the requirements of strength and thickness?
In the end, Jobs found Corning and asked Corning to make this kind of glass, and the thickness was controlled within1.3mm. At that time, the limit that Corning could make was only 4 mm, which was far from Jobs' requirement. In the end, Corning withstood the pressure, completed the task given by Apple within half a year, and produced the products that Jobs needed. This is the famous "gorilla glass". On the day before the iPhone went on sale in 2007, Jobs wrote a short message to Wendell Wilkes, CEO of Corning, which read, "We couldn't have done this without you." .
With the release of iphone, Corning's name once again appeared in front of the world. At present, Corning Gorilla Glass has been adopted by almost all mainstream mobile phone brands in the world, with more than 5 billion devices in use, accounting for 70% of the global smartphone and tablet market, with a market value of more than 25 billion US dollars.
In today's mobile phone market, the full screen can no longer satisfy people's interest, and brand-new "black technology" curved screen and folding screen have entered the market. Huawei's new folding screen mobile phone Mate xs was once sought after after after its release. The price as high as 16999 yuan has not affected the enthusiasm of consumers at all. Folding screen is the trend of mobile phone development in the future. "Flexible glass", something that can only be seen in movies before, is really going to appear in front of us.
May 20 19, corning announced that Samsung's flexible Lotus OLED products will use corning's lotus NXT glass as the carrier of OLED screen. At present, Corning has the ability to handle the flexible screen of organic light-emitting diodes, and the flexible glass panel will replace the common plastic panel of organic light-emitting diodes in the future market.
In addition, Corning is also developing an ultra-thin flexible glass covering the screen surface, which has higher impact resistance and can better adapt to the trend of bending and flexibility of mobile phone screens.
Behind many dazzling achievements are countless behind-the-scenes heroes who have paid silently. Although their names may not be known to us, their contributions and achievements will never be erased. Corning is such a hero, he has been using his "core technology" to contribute to the development of society and the times!