), the display will be manufactured in Taiwan.
The virtual display appears to the user similar to a 20-inch display at a distance of 5 feet. While the smaller panel is an evolutionary change, its impact may in fact be revolutionary. It is an enabling technology that could change the design of portable communications devices.
The first monochrome 320- by 240-pixel displays were scheduled to ship about the time this article appears, with color units to follow in three to four months. In a year or so the panels will be comparable to a 640 by 480 VGA display. Kopin will initially sell a $700 demonstration tool (with an SDK) that plugs into a VGA port, a $500 developer kit (same components, unassembled, with more lenses), and individual modules for $70 each in qua
ntities of 10 to 100.
The displays are built using single-crystal silicon. The IC fab makes up the silicon wafers with needed circuitry, then peels off just the top layer and sticks that to a piece of glass. The whole unit is about 1.5-mm thick, with a tail for the input leads. Color versions are slightly more expensive to manufacture than mono (though color will be priced about 20 percent higher). They run at 60 Hz in mono and at 180 Hz for color sequential operation.
Previous displays, from Japanese companies, have needed separate pixels and light sources for each color, notes Kopin marketing vice president Glen Kephart. The CyberDisplay builds color images by illuminating each pixel with blue, red, and green light in turn, as needed. Persistence of vision integrates the result into the desired color. Thus a 320-pixel-wide image needs only 320 pixels, regardless of whether it's color or mono. Smaller chips mean increased yields as well as allowing lower prices.
Kopin, an OEM, has no plans
to make end-user products. Expect to see the first prototypes at Fall Comdex. Kopin says it currently can assemble 5 million CyberDisplay units a year, and its fab in Taiwan can produce 20 million a year.
Potential applications are everywhere because you can stick a display into almost anything. Kopin recently showed a demo mock-up of a Motorola StarTac cellular phone with an added arm containing a swiveling display. You could see the image easily as you talked.
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CyberDisplay is less than one-fourth the size of a U.S. dime.
Big Picture in a Small Package
