Kopin Subsidiary Secures $1 Million Order from Nexstar Technology (South Korea)

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Kopin Corporation, a leading developer of innovative wearable computing technologies and solutions, announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Forth Dimension Displays Limited (ForthDD), has secured a $1 million production order from Nexstar Technology Co., Ltd. (Nexstar), headquartered in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. The order is to provide Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs) for Nexstar’s new Nexman GENIO series of 3D Automated Optical Inspection (3D AOI) and 3D Solder Paste Inspection (3D SPI) equipment.

ForthDD is a manufacturer of Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal on Silicon (FLCOS) SLM systems designed specifically for the growing 3D AOI, 3D SPI and 3D Metrology markets. Nexstar is a leading South Korean inspection equipment manufacturer that supplies machinery to East Asian manufacturers of a wide range of electronic products such as printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs), semiconductors, batteries, displays and mobile device components.

Published market research forecasts that the 3D AOI systems market will continue growing by approximately 16% annually from $750M in 2020 to $1.58B in 2025. Factors fueling this growth include increasing demands for higher productivity and quality from EMS companies and the rising demand for 3D AOI systems in the automotive electronics market. Having secured this production order from Nexstar, ForthDD is now supplying its SLMs to three leading South Korean inspection equipment manufacturers who are in mass production.

SLMs are a key component of 3D AOI/SPI equipment. The SLM is used to project structured light onto the PCBAs being measured by the 3D AOI/SPI machine. The ability to use this technology to measure component placement/solder paste in all three dimensions, on every board in real time, enables companies to do 100% inspection of populated PCBAs while also monitoring trends and improving yields which reduces waste and cost. Such advanced equipment is especially important for the growing electric vehicle market. ForthDD’s SXGA (1280 x 1024 pixels) high resolution, fast switching, all digital, high performance, proprietary FLCOS SLM is the center piece of ForthDD’s SXGA-R12 product for the 3D AOI market

Jeong Duck Kim, CEO of Nexstar, said, “ForthDD’s FLCOS SLM technology has a reputation in the market for enabling 3D AOI and SPI machines to deliver fast, reliable and accurate results, and we are excited to be partnering with them on our Nexman GENIO range of products.”

Greg Truman, CEO of ForthDD, said, “We are delighted to be selected to supply the key projection component for Nexstar's new 3D AOI and SPI products. Winning Nexstar's business is another vote of confidence in ForthDD by the marketplace. With this news, we are now supplying our high speed, high performance SLMs to three leading Korean 3D inspection equipment manufacturers, in addition to other key manufacturers in China, Japan and Germany.”