A NEWS REPORT of Kaifa SAPPHIRE CRYSTAL BUSINESS PUBLISHED ON SHENZHEN ECONOMIC DAILY By ChenshuThe recent news has struck science field that Apple seven would be equipped with sapphire crystal. The reporter saw from the 17th China Hi-tech Fair, Kaifa has released a number of sapphire crystal products that include mobile screens. “Sapphire crystal will be further applied in future sophisticated smartphones and watches”, a Kaifa spokesman said.It can be seen that Kaifa showed a range of sapphire crystal products containing sapphire crystal mobile phone covers, camera covers and watch surfaces, which looked the same as other cover lens merely according to appearance. However, sapphire crystal is not common glass but a kind of artificial stone, ultrapure single crystal alumina grows under ultrahigh temperature. Sapphire’s hardness is only inferior to diamond so that it is more scratch resistant and has high thermal conductivity and thermal resistance as well.iPhone 5S had used sapphire crystal as lens cap and “home” key in 2013, sapphire crystal had been once again represented in new generation of Apple Watch in 2014.Sapphire crystal processing is attributed to high-precision machining technology. Kaifa researched sapphire crystal technology in 2001, and officially establishing related business department in 2014. Currently, sapphire crystal dual-side manufacturing process has worked out mass production. For example, 2-inch sapphire crystals of Kaifa has the total capacity with 30 million per month, 5.5-inch sapphire crystal mobile phone cover lenses reach 10 million monthly.Apart from Apple, some external manufacturers (Samsung, LG) both indicate that they will use sapphire crystal material components on future devices. On the other side, domestic VIVO, Huawei also have applied sapphire crystal material in products. Now, cost about sapphire crystal cover lens is generally 5-10 times of tempered Glass. On the whole, if 10 percent to 20 percent of smartphones, smartwatches use such kind of material, which will drive up the industry. Smartphones’ sales growth slowdown from this year has triggered related makers to fight differentiation strategy as higher-quality materials among competitors to get ahead.