History

Special Design Department (SDD) of Novosibirsk factory was officially registered on 19 October 1959. In December 1991 SDD was put under Russian Soviet Federative Republic jurisdiction and renamed into State enterprise SDD "Katod".

In the result of privatization in 1994 SDD "Katod" was registered as OJSC "Katod", and reregistered as JSC "Katod" in 1999.

The main reason for SDD establishment was the necessity of development of electronic equipment plant which was founded in Siberia in 1954. The company staff was comprised of the best specialists of Ekran plant, Electrovacuum and Instrument-Making plants. Graduates from different Soviet universities were also recruited to form the staff.

Within the first two decades the company conducted nearly 330 scientific, research and experimental design projects. Many scientific universities from SB RAS (Academgorodok), Moscow, Leningrad, Fryazino, Saratov, Lvov and other cities participated in these projects. Scientific projects resulted in numerous developments as follows:

Image Intensifiers for a short time photonic emissions registration.
Image amplifiers for fleeting process photographing.
Progressive technology of future-oriented photomultipliers
Scientific works at innovative technology of electron-beam tubes (EBT) manufacturing

Many of the developments were used in manufacturing process. Thus a new generation of oscillographic CRT with high-leveled characteristics was widely used in oscillographs manufactured in Vilnius, Minsk and Bryansk.

Till the beginning of the 80-s SDD wasn’t narrowly specialized, Image Intensifier Tubes development was just one of the numerous research directions. The results of SDD works were in great demand in different scientific and industrial sectors: nuclear physics and optics, space research and satellite systems, medicine and radiotechnics.

The 1990-s became the dynamic stage of the enterprise development. SDD specialists took part in a scientific experiment of neutrino registration. Image amplifier samples with a large spherical photocathode "Kvazar", designed and made by Katod, allowed to create a high sensitive interconnected photon detector with a large spherical resolution. That equipment was employed in the deep-water neutrino telescope at the bottom of Lake Baikal.

At that time compact spondyle constructed photomultipliers were created to equip "Soyuz" spacecraft. There was developed an integrated "Klin" device, then served for scientific experiment of interplanetary flight with three star operation.

In 1996 Katod started Generation 2+ manufacturing and in 1999 — Generation 3. Also in 1996 there was designed and manufactured the first series of Night Vision Goggles. Some time later a binocular and monocular series were created and started-up in production.

Today JSC Katod is a leading Russian manufacturer of Image Intensifier Tubes and Night Vision Devices.

Since its foundation the company has grown from a small Development Department into a large manufacturing company with its own scientific resources.

At present JSC "Katod" is the only Russian company having a unique technology of Gen 3 Image intensifier tubes mass production. Thanks to accumulated scientific and production experience the company is able to raise the level of technical parameters and promptly respond to the market conditions. Such business approach enables the company to produce the goods being in high demand not only in Russia but also abroad.