Will, I'm now on the sidelines wrt KOPN, but am still following it.
I periodically jettison the deadweight from my portfolio and re-allocate that capital. Unfortunately, this time around that included Kopin. My guess is that the rebound may be related to progress in finalizing the CyberDisplay order announced February 17th. I believe that side of the business has been driving the stock price lately.
Many companies are targeting the cellular handset business, so Philips is just one more addition to the list. The press release is from last November, not that recent. However, it's not 'old news' either, since products such as "high performance RF front end ICs" are scheduled for release this year.
In their March 18th release on GSM power amplifiers, Conexant says:
More than 80 percent of today's CDMA PCS handsets use Conexant's gallium arsenide (GaAs) solution.
It seems to me that this may be about as good as it gets, at least in terms of market share in that particular market (CDMA). Yet despite that, Kopin is not making any significant profit from their HBT device wafer business. Contrast this to RFMD: they sell ICs as well as wafers, which gives them a piece of the action further up the value chain. Historically, wafer businesses have not been very profitable - so far, the story for device wafers hasn't been much different.
Will the addition of GSM be enough to put them 'over the top'? I don't know.
WT
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