​Touchscreen Drilling and Slotting Guide

In our daily work, we often encounter customers who require holes or slots to be made in the panel glass, such as holes for mechanical buttons, speakers, or slots based on specific design requirements. Today, let's analyze how to achieve this.

As a protective glass cover, strengthening is essential.

1) Physical Strengthening

This refers to annealed glass, which is stronger than ordinary glass (3-5 times stronger in strength, and 5-10 times more resistant to breakage). After being heated to a high temperature and then rapidly cooled, a "tight pressure" is formed on the surface, while "tensile stress" is present internally. These two forces maintain a balance, but this state is particularly sensitive to drilling and cutting damage. These forces will be released instantly, causing the glass to shatter into a pile of small, rounded fragments. Therefore, if drilling is necessary, it must be done before strengthening.

Physical strengthening requires a glass thickness of at least 2mm.  The significant warping makes it unsuitable for full lamination; the resulting bubbles and Mura defects are enough to drive lamination process engineers "crazy."

2) Chemical strengthening

This involves a displacement reaction between smaller sodium ions in the glass and larger potassium ions in a high-temperature potassium nitrate solution, forming a strong stress layer on the surface.  It offers better flatness, with warping easily controlled within 2‰, making it the preferred choice for touchscreen cover glass.

Generally, factories that manufacture cover glass perform shaping (including hole drilling and grooving) before strengthening.

The only difference is that if the strengthening depth is less than 30 μm, the strengthening process can be performed before drilling holes, milling grooves, and other shaping operations. This process involves strengthening a large sheet of material, then screen printing on the entire sheet, and finally cutting it into shape. The advantage is high work efficiency, but the strength is inferior to the post-strengthening process, and it is only suitable for products that do not require high strength.

Whether it's physically strengthened, chemically strengthened, or even unstrengthened glass, any glass with holes, grooves, or other irregular shapes will experience a significant decrease in strength, especially at the edges.  These areas become high-risk zones for breakage under stress. Even with a 30% price increase compared to standard panels, suppliers will not guarantee any impact resistance tests to their customers.

As a supplier of LCD displays, touch screens, and integrated solutions, we have extensive experience in this field. If you happen to have related needs or questions, feel free to contact us—we can provide you with professional answers and support.

We have a rigorous quality control system and professional testing equipment to ensure that our products meet the needs of customers who demand higher quality.