A small and medium-sized South Korean company has developed the world’s first twisted glass for automotive display that will provide a better viewing angle for drivers. It is expected that the glass will completely replace the current plastic material that has weak elasticity and is easy to lose transparency.
AFT (CEO An Kyeong-cheol), a company that specializes in manufacturing curved glasses, announced on Monday that it has developed the world’s first 34-inch 3D curved glass that is twisted by 10° and it plans to commercialize the product in the first half next year.
Replacing automotive dashboard with curved glass requires the highest level of technologies. Although plastic is mostly used for automotive displays due to limitations in glass forming technologies, plastic is weak against high temperature and high humidity and thermal shock and it lacks transparency when it becomes curved.
It is difficult to manufacture a wide display using plastic as wide displays made out of plastic lack resolution due to discoloration and become distorted. Although thermoforming glass is manufactured by heating it with convective heat on a mold made out of graphite, surface of molded glass needs to be reworked due to oxidation of mold and internal foreign matters.
Using 1.3mm laminated glass that it successfully developed last year, AFT has developed a curved glass that has the S shape where the curved area (R2000mm) of 12.3-inch OLED display and the curvature of midportion (R50mm) overlap slanted at 10° in order to achieve the best viewing angle for drivers.
The company uses metallic mold and it has selected a method that heats 33 near-infrared radiant heat lamps individually.
The development of 34-inch 3D twisted glass first took place due to a request made by a Japanese company two years ago. AFT recently sent a sample to the Japanese company and it plans to manufacture 500,000 glasses for the next five years starting from next year when it secures a production facility.
The company is also making investments in facilities and equipment in order to mass-produce V-shaped curved glass for Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors by the end of this year. It secured supplies from two Japanese companies and two European automotive parts joint ventures based in China and it plans to manufacture 30,000 V-shaped curved glasses monthly starting from next year.
“When it comes to the curved glass forming field, we possess world-level technologies.” said CEO An Kyeong-cheol. “We are going to continue to develop high-quality curved glasses in different forms through simple and effective processes.”
Staff Reporter Jung, Jaehoon | jhoon@etnews.com