eMagin - Page 12

eMagin announced that will pay a special dividend of $0.10 per share to all shares payable on December 26, 2012 (to shareholders of record as of December 20, 2012). eMagin says that this will not compromise their financial position. One of the reasons for the dividend is because of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding future dividend tax rates.

An eMagin OLED microdisplay

eMagin has 23.52 million outstanding shares which means that the total payment will be $2.35 million. eMagin has about $16.6 million in cash and so have no problem paying this dividend. The OLED microdisplay maker has a revenue guidance of $30-$34 million in 2012, and net income in Q3 2012 was $340,000.

eMagin announced that it signed a contract extension with Sagem for the exclusive supply of OLED Microdisplays for FELIN (Integrated Infantryman Equipment and Communications). The new extension includes about 15,000 additional microdisplays. eMagin is the exclusive OLED supplier to FELIN and future Sagem Optronics products through 2017. Sagem will also gain early access to a soon-to-be-announced family of new eMagin OLED microdisplays (perhaps the high brightness 2000x2000 ones).

The original agreement was signed in 2006 and included OLEDs for helmet mounted displays, weapon sights and target designators. eMagin says they shipped over 17,000 OLED microdisplays to Sagem to date.

eMagin reported their Q3 2012 financial results today. Revenues were $7.5 million (Q3 2011 revenues were $8.3, the decrease is because of lower R&D contract revenue). Net income was $340,000. eMagin has $16.6 million in cash and the company maintains their 2012 revenue guidance of $30-$34 million.

Regarding the camera electronic viewfinder project, eMagin says that they shipped some first prototypes, and are implementing further improvements - mainly a 67% increase in color gamut. This means that the current crop of digital cameras with OLED XGA viewfinders (the Fujifilm X-E1, the panasonic GH3 and Sony's A99, NEX-6 and the RX-1.) do not use eMagin's microdisplays (we actually assumed thus back when the cameras were announced). In fact eMagin says that they hope to ship the microdisplays during Q1 2013, and the product will probably ship in Q2. This is a high-end camera, but eMagin says these kinds of cameras can sell about 100,000 units a year.

In the past few weeks several new digital cameras with OLED EVFs were announced: the Fujifilm X-E1, the panasonic GH3 and Sony's A99, NEX-6 and the RX-1. In the Sony cameras, the OLED microdisplays are made by Sony themselves. But who makes the other OLEDs used by Fujifilm and Panasonic?

The GH3's EVF has a microdisplay that sports 1,744k pixels - and that's all we know about it. Pocket-Lint claims that it sports an RGBB architecture (a second blue). This probably means that it is made by MicroOLED as we know they used this architecture (RGBB filters over white OLEDs) in their first-get WVGA OLED micodisplay, which fits the GH3 specification. UDC has also developed an RGBB architecture back in 2010, but it was a direct-emission design, so I don't think MicroOLED is using that design.

eMagin's new SNU OLED deposition machine has finally achieved automated operation. The company already started producing using the new machine last month, but a part of process needed to be automated and the company now achieved that.

eMagin says that some OLED microdisplay samples produced in the new machine were provided for customers - and these performed well in tests. eMagin's own 1,000-hours long reliability testing is nearly complete, and it's showing positive results. The testing will conclude in mid-September, after which displays from the new machine, including those in inventory, can be shipped to fill customer orders.

eMagin reported their Q2 2012 results with record revenues of $8.6 million (a 15.3% increase over Q2 2011). Net income was $577,000. eMagin has about $13.3 million in cash. During Q2 the company bought back 125,000 shares (average price $2.95).

New deposition machine

Andrew Sculley (eMagin's CEO) says that eMagin have finally started to produce microdisplays on their new deposition machine. The machine isn't yet fully optimized, and they are also producing on their older Satella machine. eMagin says that once the new machine is fully optimized (they need to automate a certain process still), capacity will grow 10-fold, and the displays will have better uniformity - which will increase quality and yields.

eMagin has won a new contract from the US Navo to develop a high-brightness 2000x2000 OLED microdisplay for aircraft cockpits. The first stage of this project (worth $1.1 million) will begin immediately, until September 2012. Then a second $1.3 million stage will begin and will run for 12 months. eMagin hopes that this contract will lead to adoption of OLED microdisplays for the first time in day-time avionics operation.

An eMagin OLED microdisplay

eMagin explains that in contrast to night vision goggles, which require a low brightness display so that military personnel can transition more easily from wearing the goggles to the light of their actual surroundings, aircraft cockpit displays require a very high brightness in order to be seen anytime during the day.

ITT Exelis Corporation have won a $49.5 million contract from the US army to supply display beam combiner assemblies (DBCA) for the Spiral Enhanced Night Vision Goggles (SENVG) program. Those assemblies include eMagin's OLED-XL full-color microdisplays, and eMagin's part of the contract has a potential value of $3.6 million. Deliveries are planned from mid-2012 through mid-2013.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my visit to eMagin's booth at SID 2012 and my meeting with eMagin's CEO, Andrew Sculley.

One of the first companies I wanted to visit at SID was eMagin. I met the company's CEO (Andrew G. Sculley) for the first time, and he gave me a very nice introduction to the company's current business and future plans. I'll try and summarize that meeting and eMagin's booth in this post.

eMagin is now in the final testing and qualification stages of its new deposition and seal machines. Those new machines are expected to increase capacity and improve yields. It will also free up the current machines for R&D, which seems to be very important for Andrew.

eMagin reported their financial results for Q1 2012. Revenues were $6.1 million (a company record, and a 13% increase compared to last year) and net loss was $452,000. The company saw an increase of 35% in product revenue, and a 59% increase in the number of display produced.

The company hopes that during Q2 they will complete the testing of the new OLED deposition machine and will begin production. They expect OLED deposition capacity to increase by tenfold and also higher yields.