Resulting increase in wafer capacity to further strengthen Company’s wireless telecom strategy

TAUNTON, Mass., June 5, 2000 - Kopin Corporation (NASDAQ: KOPN), the leading provider of gallium arsenide (GaAs) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBT) for the wireless communications market, said today that it has ordered six additional HBT production systems from AIXTRON AG, based in Aachen, Germany (FSE:AIX). Scheduled for delivery in calendar 2001, these systems will give Kopin 22 machines - eight capable of supporting multiple 4-inch HBT systems and 14 capable of handling multiple 6-inch HBT systems.

"These new systems will support the dynamic growth that Kopin is experiencing in orders from its wireless and fiber-optic circuit partners," said John C.C, Fan, the company's president and chief executive officer. "As the leading volume merchant supplier of HBT transistors, Kopin is sitting in the pole position in this area. The HBT production systems we have ordered from AIXTRON will enable Kopin to focus on capacity expansion at both our Taunton headquarters and at our recently announced second manufacturing site." 

Kopin's HBT transistors are used to produce power amplifiers circuits for GSM, CDMA, TDMA and PCS handsets. They also are used in broadband OC-48 and OC-192 SONET systems, which form the backbone of the highest speed fiber-optic networks.

Kopin Orders Six New HBT Systems/2

The six AIXTRON systems announced today will enable Kopin to increase its 4-inch transistor capacity by 33 percent, and its 6-inch capacity by 67 percent. With these systems, Kopin expects its 4-inch capacity to be more than 400,000 wafers per year, while its 6-inch capacity will expand to 200,000 wafers per year.

Daily S. Hill, Kopin's vice president of GaAs operations, said, "Our decision to order additional HBT production systems speaks to the excellent results that we already have achieved from AIXTRON's systems to date. At a time when capacity is an issue confronting the entire wireless telephony industry, this state-of-the-art equipment gives Kopin the ability to offer its circuit partners short-cycle delivery to support their high-volume production. The automation equipment and other sophisticated manufacturing systems being added by Kopin give the company the tools to support next-generation wireless applications."

Holger Juergensen, president of AIXTRON, states: "It is exciting to see how KOPIN is building the largest focussed GaAs 6 inch epiwafer fab for wireless applications. The confidence in these 5x6 inch MOCVD systems is based on the many man years of III-V process development and understanding with these AIX 2600G3 machines, compared to any other multiwafer 6" epi-equipment, whether MBE, other MOCVD or just silicon equipment, which cannot come even close to the extreme requirements in growth and stoichiometry control. The AIX 2600G3 machine for 5 x 6 inch wafers is now more than 3 years in the market. More than 100 machines of this multiwafer 6 inch reactor have been sold worldwide. One of the most important accomplishments most recently is, that also pHEMT experts in the US acknowledged, that the 6 inch pHEMT wafer device and performance from the AIX 2600G3 is at least as good as 4 inch MBE wafers, while 6 inch MBE equipment has just recently been introduced into the market, however, with no process development carried out by the MBE equipment vendors during the development cycle. We are glad to see this major breakthrough happening allowing for further cost reductions also in the pHEMT epiwafer market. AIXTRON opened most recently the world's largest MOCVD equipment manufacturing facility with a capacity of 300 machines per year, thus is well geared up to serve this extremely fast growing market."

About AIXTRON

AIXTRON has installed over 350 systems worldwide and is represented in over 15 countries. The company provides an extensive service and support network for maintenance as well as upgrading of its systems. Among AIXTRON's list of further industrial clients are names such as Agilent/LumiLeds (subsidiary of Hewlett Packard), Alcatel, Anritsu, AXT, Epistar, Epitronics, EPSON, IQE (EPI), Honeywell, JDS-Uniphase, ITT, Kopin, Lucent, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, NEC, Nortel, Osram, Samsung, Showa Denko, Sumitomo Electric, Thomson, UEC, VPEC and numerous Japanese corporations. AIXTRON systems have also been installed in many of the world's most renowned research institutes including JPL, Sandia Nat. Lab., Fraunhofer Institute, ITRI-OES, CNRS. AIXTRON is very active in advancing MOCVD technology through collaborations and joint R&D projects with major partners worldwide.

About Kopin