TAUNTON, Mass., 1 Jan. 2009. Kopin Corp. announced that the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), the U.S. Army's RDECOM CERDEC Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD), and the U.S. Army's Product Manager Soldier Sensors and Lasers (PM-SSL) jointly awarded a three-year, $3.1 million program to Kopin for the development of the world's highest-resolution microdisplays for use in future vision systems, including integrated day-night weapon sights and solid-state image intensifiers.

"The U.S. Government is again relying on Kopin to expand the boundaries of microdisplay resolution and performance by developing an active-matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) with a 2048x2048 monochrome pixel resolution in a 0.99-inch-diagonal form factor," says president and CEO Dr. John C. C. Fan. "This new display will reflect the strategic research and development initiatives we have undertaken over many years, efforts that have resulted in important innovations including low-voltage architecture, integral heaters, small pixel geometry, and specialized and ruggedized LCD processes. The new 8-inch processing line Kopin developed in partnership with the U.S. Government will be critical in the fabrication of such a high-resolution display."

"This new display will provide military personnel with spatial resolution equal to or better than the current image intensifier tube," states Michael Presz, Kopin's vice president of Government Programs and Special Projects. "It will allow for target identification at extreme ranges, which will substantially reduce friendly fire incidents. In addition, the lightweight, low-power display architecture will optimize the viewing of digital image intensifier imagery."