Corning Incorporated is an American multinationaltechnology company that specializes in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies including advanced optics, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The company was named Corning Glass Works until 1989.[2] Corning divested its consumer product lines (including CorningWare and VisionsPyroceram-based cookware, Corelle Vitrelle tableware, and Pyrex glass bakeware) in 1998 by selling the Corning Consumer Products Company subsidiary (later Corelle Brands, now known as Instant Brands) to Borden.
As of 2014[update], Corning had five major business sectors: display technologies, environmental technologies, life sciences, optical communications, and specialty materials. Corning is involved in two joint ventures: Dow Corning and Pittsburgh Corning. Quest Diagnostics and Covance were spun off from Corning in 1996.[3] Corning is one of the main suppliers to Apple Inc. Since working with Steve Jobs in 2007, to develop the iPhone;[4] Corning develops and manufactures Gorilla Glass, which is used by many smartphone makers. It is one of the world's biggest glassmakers.[5] Corning won the National Medal of Technology and Innovation four times for its product and process innovations.[6][7][8][9]
History
One of the first optic headlamp lenses, the Corning Conaphore. Selective yellow "Noviol" glass version shown.
Corning Glass Works was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton, in Somerville, Massachusetts, originally as the Bay State Glass Co.[citation needed] It later moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and operated as the Brooklyn Flint Glass Works. The company moved again to its ultimate home and eponym, the city of Corning, New York, in 1868, under leadership of the founder's son, Amory Houghton, Jr.
Corning continues to maintain its world headquarters at Corning, N.Y. The firm also established one of the first industrial research labs there in 1908.[citation needed] It continues to expand the nearby research and development facility, as well as operations associated with catalytic converters and diesel engine filter product lines. Corning has a long history of community development and has assured community leaders that it intends to remain headquartered in its small upstate New York hometown.[10]
The California Institute of Technology's 200-inch (5.1m) telescope mirror at Palomar Observatory was cast by Corning during 1934–1936, out of low expansion borosilicate glass.[11] In 1932, George Ellery Hale approached Corning with the challenge of fabricating the required optic for his Palomar project. A previous effort to fabricate the optic from fused quartz had failed. Corning's first attempt was a failure, the cast blank having voids. Using lessons learned, Corning was successful in the casting of the second blank. After a year of cooling, during which it was almost lost to a flood, in 1935, the blank was completed. The first blank now resides in Corning's Museum of Glass.
In 1935, Corning formed a partnership with bottle maker Owens-Illinois, which formed the company known today as Owens Corning. Owens Corning was spun off as a separate company in 1938.
1917 advertisement for the Corning Conaphore headlamp lens shown above
The company had a history of science-based innovations following World War II and the strategy by management was research and "disruptive" and "on demand" product innovation.[12]
In 1962, Corning developed Chemcor, a new toughened automobile windshield designed to be thinner and lighter than existing windshields, which reduced danger of personal injury by shattering into small granules when smashed.[13] This toughened glass had a chemically hardened outer layer, and its manufacture incorporated an ion exchange and a "fusion process" in special furnaces that Corning built in its Christiansburg, Virginia facility.[12][14] Corning developed it as an alternative to laminated windshields with the intention of becoming an automotive industry supplier.[12] After being installed as side glass in a limited run of 1968 Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Darts, Chemcor windshields debuted on the 1970 model year Javelins and AMXs built by American Motors Corporation (AMC).[14] As there were no mandatory safety standards for motor vehicle windshields, the larger automakers had no financial incentive to change from the cheaper existing products.[12][14] Corning terminated its windshield project in 1971, after it turned out to be one of the company's "biggest and most expensive failures."[14] However, like many Corning innovations, the unique process to manufacture this automotive glass was resurrected and is today the basis of their very profitable LCD glass business.
In the fall of 1970, the company announced that researchers Robert D. Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter C. Schultz, and Frank Zimar had demonstrated an optical fiber with a low optical attenuation of 17dB per kilometer by dopingsilica glass with titanium.[15] A few years later they produced a fiber with only 4dB/km, using germanium oxide as the core dopant. Such low attenuations made fiber optics practical for telecommunications and networking. Corning became the world's leading manufacturer of optical fiber.
In 1977, considerable attention was given to Corning's Z Glass project. Z Glass was a product used in television picture tubes. Due to a number of factors, the exact nature of which are subject to dispute, this project was considered a steep loss in profit and productivity. The following year the project made a partial recovery. This incident has been cited as a case study by the Harvard School of Business.[16]
Company profits soared in the late 1990s during the dot-com boom, and Corning expanded its fiber operations significantly through the acquisition of telecommunications company Oak Industries[17] and building several new plants. The company also entered the photonics market, investing heavily with the intent of becoming the leading provider of complete fiber-optic systems. Failure to succeed in photonics and the collapse in 2000 of the dot-com market had a major impact on the company, and Corning stock plummeted to $1 per share. However, as of 2007[update] the company had posted five straight years of improving financial performance.
The turning point for Corning came when Apple approached it to develop a robust display screen for its upcoming iPhone. Later, other companies also adopted its Gorilla Glass screen. In 2011, Corning announced the expansion of existing facilities and the construction of a Gen 10 facility co-located with the Sharp Corporation manufacturing complex in Sakai, Osaka, Japan.[18] The LCD glass substrate is produced without heavy metals. Corning is a leading manufacturer of the glass used in liquid crystal displays.[citation needed]
The company continues to produce optical fiber and cable for the communications industry at its Wilmington and Concord plants in North Carolina. It is also a major manufacturer of ceramic emission control devices for catalytic converters in cars and light trucks that use gasoline engines. The company is also investing in the production of ceramic emission control products for diesel engines as a result of tighter emission standards for those engines both in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2007, Corning introduced an optic fiber, ClearCurve, which uses nanostructure technology to facilitate the small radius bending found in FTTX installations.
Gorilla Glass, an outgrowth of the 1960s Chemcor project, is a high-strength alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass used as a protective cover glass offering scratch resistance and durability in many touchscreens.[19] According to the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Gorilla Glass was used in the first iPhone released in 2007.[20]
On October 25, 2011, Corning unveiled Lotus Glass, an environmentally friendly and high-performance glass developed for OLED and LCD displays.[21][22]
Corning invests about 10% of revenue in research and development, and has allocated US$300 million towards further expansion of its Sullivan Park research facility near headquarters in Corning, New York.[23]
Corning Incorporated manufactures a high-purity fused silica employed in microlithography systems, a low expansion glass utilized in the construction of reflective mirror blanks, windows for U.S. Space Shuttles, and Steuben art glass. The number of Corning facilities employing the traditional tanks of molten glass has declined over the years, but it maintains the capacity to supply bulk or finished glass of many types.
Corning is engaged in research and development on green lasers, mercury abatement, microreactors, photovoltaics, and silicon on glass. Through its Life Sciences division, the company offers products to support life science research, including stem-cell culture products.[24]
In September 2019, Apple announced that it would invest $250 million in Corning, in an effort to develop and manufacture the glass needed for many of its products, including the iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad. Though not confirmed by either company, the investment could be used to develop new products in the future. Apple had already invested $200 million in Corning in 2017.[25]
Other activities
Corning employs roughly 61,200 people worldwide and had sales of $14.08 billion in 2021.[26] The company has been listed for many years among Fortune magazine's 500 largest companies, and was ranked #297 in 2015.
Although the company has long been publicly owned, James R. Houghton, great-great-grandson of the founder, served as chairman of the board of directors from 2001 to 2007. Over the years Houghton family ownership has declined to about 2%. Wendell P. Weeks has been with the company since 1983 and as of March 2013[update] was chairman, chief executive officer, and president.[27]
Over its 160-year history Corning invented a process for rapid and inexpensive production of light bulbs, including developing the glass for Thomas Edison's light bulb. Corning was the glass supplier for lightbulbs for General Electric after Edison General Electric merged with Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1892.[28] It was an early major manufacturer of glass panels and funnels for television tubes, invented and produced Vycor (high temperature glass with high thermal shock resistance). Corning invented and produced Pyrex, CorningWare and VisionsPyroceram glass-ceramic cookware, and Corelle durable glass dinnerware. Corning manufactured the windows for US crewed space vehicles, and supplied the glass blank for the primary mirror in the Hubble Space Telescope.
In 1982, Corning launched Chameleon® Sunglasses and Serengeti® sunglasses at retail, featuring the exclusive combination of Photochromic and Spectral Control® technologies in the lenses.
In February 2011, Corning acquired MobileAccess Networks, an Israeli company that develops Distributed antenna systems, which are often used by universities, stadiums and airports to ensure seamless wireless coverage throughout a facility. MobileAccess Networks became part of Corning's telecommunications business unit.[30] In July 2017, Corning acquired SpiderCloud Wireless.[31] In December 2017, Corning acquired all of 3M Communication Market Division, in a cash transaction approximately $900 million. Acquisition closed during 2018; 3M Communication Market Division became part of Corning Optical Communications business unit.[32]
Kurt M. Landgraf: retired president and chief executive officer, Educational Testing Service
Kevin Martin: vice president, US public policy, Meta Platforms, Inc.
Deborah D. Rieman: retired executive chairman, MetaMarkets Group
Hansel E. Tookes II: retired chairman and chief executive officer, Raytheon Aircraft Company
Wendell P. Weeks: chairman, chief executive officer, and president, Corning Incorporated
Mark S. Wrighton: professor of chemistry and chancellor emeritas, Washington University in St. Louis
See also
Corelle Brands LLC, the later name adopted by the Corning Consumer Products Company subsidiary that was sold to Borden in 1998, before it merged with Instant Brands in 2019.
Corning is a city in Steuben County, New York, United States, on the Chemung River. The population was 10,551 at the 2020 census. It is named for Erastus Corning, an Albany financier and railroad executive who was an investor in the company that developed the community. The city is best known as the headquarters of Fortune 500 company Corning Incorporated, formerly Corning Glass Works, a manufacturer of glass and ceramic products for industrial, scientific and technical uses. Corning is roughly equidistant from New York City and Toronto, being about 220 miles (350 km) from both.
Steuben Glass is an American art glass manufacturer, founded in the summer of 1903 by Frederick Carder and Thomas G. Hawkes in Corning, New York, which is in Steuben County, from which the company name was derived. Hawkes was the owner of the largest cut glass firm then operating in Corning. Carder was an Englishman who had many years' experience designing glass for Stevens & Williams in England. Hawkes purchased the glass blanks for his cutting shop from many sources and eventually wanted to start a factory to make the blanks himself. Hawkes convinced Carder to come to Corning and manage such a factory. Carder, who had been passed over for promotion at Stevens and Williams, consented to do so.
Pyrex is a brand introduced by Corning Inc. in 1915 for a line of clear, low-thermal-expansion borosilicate glass used for laboratory glassware and kitchenware. It was later expanded in the 1930s to include kitchenware products made of soda–lime glass and other materials.
Corning Ware, also written CorningWare, was originally a brand name for a unique glass-ceramic (Pyroceram) cookware resistant to thermal shock. It was first introduced in 1958 by Corning Glass Works in the United States. The brand was later spun off with the sale of the Corning Consumer Products Company subsidiary, now known as Corelle Brands.
The Houghton family is a prominent New England and Upstate New York business family. The Corning Glass Works were founded and run by some members of the family.
An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are immune to electromagnetic interference. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, such as fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers.
Corelle Brands, LLC is an American kitchenware products maker and distributor based in Downers Grove, Illinois.
Optical networking is a means of communication that uses signals encoded in light to transmit information in various types of telecommunications networks. These include limited range local-area networks (LAN) or wide area networks (WANs), which cross metropolitan and regional areas as well as long-distance national, international and transoceanic networks. It is a form of optical communication that relies on optical amplifiers, lasers or LEDs and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) to transmit large quantities of data, generally across fiber-optic cables. Because it is capable of achieving extremely high bandwidth, it is an enabling technology for the Internet and telecommunication networks that transmit the vast majority of all human and machine-to-machine information.
Light tubes are structures that transmit or distribute natural or artificial light for the purpose of illumination and are examples of optical waveguides.
American Photonics, Inc. (API) was a very early developer of local area network technologies in the 1980s, based first in Brewster, New York, moving later to Brookfield Center, Connecticut.
Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared or visible light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is preferred over electrical cabling when high bandwidth, long distance, or immunity to electromagnetic interference is required. This type of communication can transmit voice, video, and telemetry through local area networks or across long distances.
Corelle is a brand of glassware and dishware. It is made of Vitrelle, a tempered glass product consisting of two types of glass laminated into three layers. It was introduced by Corning Glass Works in 1970, but is now manufactured and sold by Corelle Brands.
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. is a manufacturer of electric wire and optical fiber cables. Its headquarters are in Chūō-ku, Osaka, Japan. The company's shares are listed in the first section of the Tokyo, Nagoya Stock Exchanges, and the Fukuoka Stock Exchange. In the period ending March 2021, the company reported consolidated sales of US$26,5 billion.
A fiber-optic cable, also known as an optical-fiber cable, is an assembly similar to an electrical cable but containing one or more optical fibers that are used to carry light. The optical fiber elements are typically individually coated with plastic layers and contained in a protective tube suitable for the environment where the cable is used. Different types of cable are used for optical communication in different applications, for example long-distance telecommunication or providing a high-speed data connection between different parts of a building.
Peter C. Schultz is an American academic who is co-inventor of the fiber optics used for telecommunications. He is retired President of Heraeus Tenevo Inc., a technical glass manufacturer specializing in fiber optics and semiconductor markets, and retired Chief Technical Officer North America for Heraeus Holding GmbH. In 2001, he was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for invention and development of manufacturing methods and glass compositions for low-attenuation glass fibers for optical communication.
Donald B. Keck is an American research physicist and engineer most noted for his involvement in developing low-loss optical fiber. Keck grew up in Lansing, Michigan and attended Michigan State University, after which he joined Corning Incorporated’s research department. As a senior research scientist for Corning, Keck, along with Robert D. Maurer and Peter C. Schultz, designed the first optical fiber with optical losses low enough for wide use in telecommunications.
Gorilla Glass is a brand of chemically strengthened glass developed and manufactured by Corning. It is in its eighth generation. Designed to be thin, light and damage-resistant, the glass gains its surface strength, ability to contain flaws, and crack-resistance by being immersed in a hot, potassium-salt, ion-exchange bath.
Xylem Inc. is a large American water technology provider, in public utility, residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial settings. The company does business in more than 150 countries. Launched in 2011 as the spinoff of the water-related businesses of ITT Corporation, Xylem is headquartered in Washington, DC, with 2018 revenues of $5.2 billion and 17,000 employees worldwide.
Thomas Owusu Mensah was a Ghanaian-American chemical engineer and inventor who contributed to the development of fiber optic manufacturing and nanotechnology. He had 14 patents, and was inducted into the US National Academy of Inventors in 2015. In 2017, Mensah served as editor-in-chief of the textbook Nanotechnology Commercialization, published by John Wiley & Sons.
The Fiber Optic Sensing Association (FOSA) is a nonprofit industry association that promotes fiber-optic sensing technology. It was founded in April 2017 in Washington, D.C. and has a membership of 21 companies and universities.
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US$14.19 billion (2022)
US$1.44 billion (2022)
