Toughened glass is treated to be far more resistant to breakage than simple annealed glass and to break in a more predictable way when it does break, thus providing a major safety advantage in almost all of its applications.

Toughened glass is made from annealed glass treated with a thermal tempering process. A sheet of annealed glass is heated to above its "annealing point" of 600°C; its surfaces are then rapidly cooled while the inner portion of the glass remains hotter. The different cooling rates between the surface and the inside of the glass produces different physical properties, resulting in compressive stresses in the surface balanced by tensile stresses in the body of the glass. These counteracting stresses give toughened glass its increased mechanical resistance to breakage, and are also, when it does break, what cause it to produce small, regular, typically square fragments rather than long, dangerous shards that are far more likely to lead to injuries. Toughened glass also has an increased resistance to breakage as a result of stresses caused by different temperatures within a pane.