Guide: At an innovation event held in Shenzhen, the "Silicon Valley of China", the world's leading technology group Xiao Te showed the great impact of glass on the future development of mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets).

OFweek showed that at an innovation event held in Shenzhen, "China's Silicon Valley", SCHOTT, the world's leading technology group, showed the great impact of glass on the future development of mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets). Schott not only laid a foundation for future mobile device design in the field of general components such as display screen protection glass, but also developed special glass with good physical compatibility with semiconductor materials, which is changing the design concept of sensors, chips and antennas.

Smartphone users click on their phones more than 2500 times on average every day. Such high click frequency mainly lies in information browsing and the use of application software. As a result, the relationship between users and the protective glass of mobile phone display screen is particularly "intimate". But for users, this is not obvious: glass also plays a very important role in the internal components of mobile phones, such as sensors and chips. At the recent innovation press conference held in Shenzhen, Short specifically presented the project with the theme of "embedded glass in smart phones" to the people, which made the audience dazzling.

Blue glass infrared cut-off filter - applied to high resolution digital camera, presenting the best visual effect

Modern smart phones can now realize digital photography of 10 million or more pixels. Most people know that image quality doesn't just depend on the size of pixels. In addition to the so-called CMOS sensor, the filter placed in the front of the camera will have an important impact on the color restoration and imaging clarity of photography. High quality filters and protective covers are made of high-strength ultra-thin glass, which can protect the camera from scratches.

The important role of filter: it is a filter lens that can filter the infrared spectrum (NIR: near-infrared spectroscopy technology), and can play its role in complex light and harsh photography environment. The absorbing blue glass infrared cut-off filter developed by Schott is an important part of high-tech camera modules and smart phone cameras, which has obvious advantages over other materials. However, the performance of the interference type infrared cut-off filter for filtering the near-infrared spectrum is poor, and it is usually equipped on a low pixel camera. Schott's glass products can be used for various types of infrared cut-off filters on cameras from low-end to high-end, with a variety of specifications and models for customers to choose from.

To a large extent, Short is one of the leading manufacturers of high-end infrared cut-off filters. "Whether people use high-end smart phones or digital SLR cameras to take high pixel photos, it is certain that they need infrared cut-off filters," said Andreas Haedrich, sales director of SCHOTT Advanced Optics in Europe, "Generally speaking, digital cameras with more than 5 million pixels need to use absorption blue glass infrared cut-off filters. Due to the demand for dual lens modules of smartphones, such as the need for both telephoto and wide-angle lenses, the market demand for the company's products has doubled in the past few months.". He went on to say, "This positive development strategy has prompted the Schott Group to pursue higher development results. At present, Schott is trying to make the infrared cut-off filter thinner to adapt to the design trend of lighter smartphones."

AS 87 eco ultra-thin glass - specially used for curved surface design and future sensors

Short Group has been committed to improving its ultra-thin glass development for many years. The thickness of glass is reduced to 30 microns through industrial manufacturing methods, and the field of ultra-thin glass penetration is even beyond people's imagination. Glass thinner than human hair provides infinite possibilities for its application in the electronic field.

Thanks to special material properties, ultra-thin glass can be designed as display screen protection glass, cover of fingerprint sensor or cover of camera chip or lens. Of course, there will be more applications in the future. Due to the excellent flexibility of ultra-thin glass, it can also be used in future curved equipment.

Schott AS 87 eco is a special glass based on this kind of application field. This product is developed by the international cooperation of two departments of Short Group in Germany and Asia, and is produced in Germany through environmental protection process. This ultra-thin glass can provide a variety of thickness specifications according to customer needs, with excellent performance, flexibility and convenience, as well as excellent physical performance. For example, it has excellent optical and electromagnetic transmission characteristics, which are important reference factors for fingerprint identification module. In addition, the unique one-time molding production process avoids the step of using harmful hydrofluoric acid to chemically thin the thick glass. Schott AS 87 eco has a wide range of applications. It can also be used on the protective glass of curved display screen.

This ultra-thin glass is produced by using the "pull-down method" direct thermoforming process, and the thickness required for directly drawing the molten glass through a slit. This is a technology for manufacturing ultra-thin lenses. Short Group is the only company in the world that is proficient in this technology, and it is also a technology leader in using ultra-thin glass for future nano level chips and sensors.

MEMpax special glass - matched with semiconductor silicon material, used for sensors, 5G antennas and other products

Like Schott AS 87 eco, Schott MEMpax also uses the pull-down method to directly draw the glass from the furnace to the required thickness. This process allows customers to save costs in fire polishing, even at a thickness of less than 500 microns. As a borosilicate glass with a fire polished surface, MEMpax is special in that it has a coefficient of thermal expansion that matches the silicon material. Moreover, the glass is very suitable for anodic bonding process. Based on special process, MEMpax can be closely combined with silicon wafer, which is the basic material for high-speed computer chips, processors and sensors.

MEMpax has now been used in sensors in the automotive industry to measure tire pressure and oil pressure. It should be pointed out here that this kind of glass combines with silicon through pressure, heating and tension, so as to provide reliable measurement results for components constituting MEMS.

Ultra thin special glass as the substrate material of large-scale MIMO system (5G) and radar

The extremely homogeneous materials are not only suitable as the ideal substitutes for expensive polymers in future sensors, but also can be used as substrate materials for high-frequency applications. That is to say, as many circuit elements and antennas as possible can be assembled in a small space, and ensure high-quality performance. This is a great challenge for multi input/multi output radio systems. This is also the so-called "large-scale MIMO", which can be used as the basis of the fifth generation telecommunications network (LTE's successor product "5G").

In the concept of large-scale MIMO, many antennas are combined in a narrow space. On the contrary, only a few transmit and receive antennas are responsible for the transmission of the LET network or fast WiFi standard 802.11ac. The increased number of antennas is not only used to improve transmission speed, but also to ensure stable connectivity with as many users as possible within the limited space. When many receivers live in a narrow space, this method has advantages. For example, in football fields or urban centers with high density, more targeted transmission can also effectively reduce energy consumption.

"Whether it is a manufacturer of radar ranging devices in the automotive field or a manufacturer of highly reliable antenna substrates, the ultra-thin special glass of SCHOTT Group can provide them with extremely high degree of design freedom, high standard manufacturing accuracy and excellent high-frequency performance," said Martin Letz of the Materials Development Department of SCHOTT Group. "In addition, on the standard materials used in high-frequency systems, glass has better metallization performance than PTFE. At the same time, glass has higher rigidity and dielectric properties than plastic," he concluded.