PARIS – Ulis announced a 20 million euros ($24 million) investment in a new infrared facility near Grenoble, France, to penetrate emerging high volume markets such as automotive and low-resolution sensors.
Ulis, a France-based provider of infrared imaging sensors, uses amorphous silicon microbolometer technology (aSi). The technology is today used in a broad range of commercial and military applications like thermography, night vision, surveillance, firefighting, search and rescue, and home energy audits.
For the first time, Ulis said it will introduce to the market a series of low cost IR sensors. "There is a huge market demand now, and Ulis' offer meets market expectations in terms of cost, performance and reliability," declared Jean-François Delepau, managing director of Ulis, to
EETimes.
Delepau continued: "Existing offers based on alternative technologies cannot meet market expectations. For example, these low image-resolution IR sensors require a real technological breakthrough in terms of low power and low cost technologies. ULIS owns the competitive advantage here."
According to the recently published report by Yole Développement (Lyon, France), "
Uncooled Infrared Imaging: Commercial & Military Applications", sales of uncooled IR cameras will grow from 320,000 units in 2011 to 1.1 million units in 2017. The market share for uncooled IR imagers for commercial applications is expected to represent more than 80 percent of the total uncooled IR imaging market, with the part for military applications declining from about 30 percent to 15 percent.
With the new facility, Ulis said it will move production from 150 mm CMOS wafers to 200 mm CMOS wafers and introduce a series of low image resolution IR sensors for applications such as enhancing energy efficiency of heating/cooling systems or detecting people. The shift to 200 mm will enable the integration of additional functions onto the IR chips. This could include adding more memory for voltage reading.
200mm CMOS wafer