ALA-News: ULIS announces that the company experienced strong growth in 2015, with close to a 20% increase in volume sales over 2014. New customers in outdoor leisure equipment, continued sustainable growth in traditional markets, such as surveillance, thermography and defense, and several key contract wins drove the bulk of ULIS’ €48M ($52.3M) activity in 2015. ULIS’ unit sales climbed to 94,286 in 2015, up from 79,350 the previous year.
“The pattern of ULIS’ volume sales performance appears to reflect market analyst forecasts of rapid growth within the uncooled infrared camera market, indicating +22% CAGR in units between 2015 – 2020,” said Dr Eric Mounier, senior technology and market analyst, MEMS & Sensors at Yole Développement.
“We exceeded our objectives for 2015; gearing ULIS towards even higher prospects in 2016. I am very happy with my team and their dedication. I thank them for their drive and support,” said Jean-François Delepau, managing director of ULIS. “Our customer base also grew in 2015. The price/performance of our complete portfolio of Pico Gen2 products made a significant impact; they struck the right chord with camera makers and system developers across many market applications. In 2016, we will aim even higher to bring even greater product and service satisfaction to our customers.”
ULIS is said to be the second largest producer of microbolometric thermal image sensors. Since its creation in 2002, the company has delivered 500,000 thermal sensors to equipment makers. Delepau is confident that the company’s growth rate will maintain the same pace for the next two years, then accelerate due to further penetration into new markets, such as smart buildings and automotive. “As early as January 2015, we saw initial signs that we would secure a high percentage of sales. This year, we have already begun seeing other positive indicators.”
Currently, ULIS is close to going to market with its Pixel Level Packaging (PLP), which is at the industrial process stage. As the pioneer of the 17um pixel pitch thermal image sensor, the current industry standard, ULIS is pursuing development of its 12um pixel pitch thermal image sensors, which is nearing completion.
Hi,
ReplyDeletedoes anyone have an idea about the price of these microbolometer image chips?
80x80 packaged BOLO FPA can be bought for something like ~100EUR/piece in bulk. In 5 years, you will see all big mobile companies integrating them in phones. Check flirone.com.
ReplyDeletewhat is the propose of that, please educate me
DeleteThat is why I mentioned flirone.com. Please help yourself. If you don't know why BOLO FPA volumes are picking up and will stay like this for the next 5-10 years, then you need to start from basics.
DeleteAnon @7:27, Look, what I was saying a day back...
Delete‘World’s first’ thermal camera smartphone launched.
A British company has unveiled what it is billing as the "world's first" smartphone with a built-in thermal imaging camera, a feature it claims will be in 50 percent of models on the market in five years...........
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/18/worlds-first-thermal-camera-image-smartphone-launched-bullitt-mobile-world-congress.html
This new smartphone from CAT Phones is powered by FLIR and already is based on a 12 micron pixel design. ULIS is a few steps behind here. Also the price of ~ 100 for an 80x80 in bulk is quite high. FLIR Lepton, 12 micron 160x120 in bulk is much less.
ReplyDeleteThe big challenge for ULIS will be the Chinese market. When they really start to produce their own bolometers, the volume for ULIS will drop significantly. This low-cost / low-performance market currently is their biggest market.
Then as long as Putin is not behaving, the Russian market is not helping boosting their sales either.
FLIR is much less dependent of these markets.
Not sure I see the future for ULIS as positive as sketch in this article...
But interesting nevertheless.