Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Kopin wins $3.1M three-year microdisplay deal

By Brendan Lynch

Kopin Corp. reports it has landed $3.1 million from the U.S. military for displays used in weapon sights.

The Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Army’s Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate and the Army’s Product Manager Soldier Sensors and Lasers division have jointly awarded a three-year, $3.1 million contract to Kopin for the development of the high-resolution microdisplays for use in day-night weapon sights and solid state image intensifiers, the company said.

Under the contract, the company said it plans to develop an active matrix, liquid-crystal display with a 2048 x 2048 monochrome pixel resolution in a 0.99-inch-diagonal form factor. The lightweight, low-power display sights are intended to improve long-range target identification.

In May, Kopin (Nasdaq: KOPN) subcontracted Woburn-based Magnolia Optical Technologies Inc. on a solar cell development contract Kopin won from NASA.

In April , Kopin won a similar deal from the Army. That deal was the first phase of an anticipated three-phase, $4.2 million U.S. Army program to speed up production and improve the performance of the company’s CyberDisplay SXGA LVR microdisplay. The same month, Kopin extended its supplier deal with SkyWorks Solutions Inc. to provide heterojunction bipolar transistors until 2010.

Taunton-based Kopin makes liquid crystal displays and III-V heterojunction bipolar transistors for consumer and military applications.

In 2007, Kopin reported a $6.6 million net loss on $98 million in revenue.