Espros Ports its CCD on CMOS Process to TSMC Fab

ESPROS Photonics announces the manufacturing process for its generation of ToF and spectral sensing chips from ESPROS Photonics has been finalized and frozen for mass production effective August 15 2017. This completes a customization project conducted during the last 18 months of the future ToF sensors epc660, epc635 and epc611 among a series of ESPROS customer specific imagers at SSMC, a TSMC affiliated fab.

ESPROS Photonics has developed BSI technology for high QE in the NIR and high performance CCD on a CMOS process. The achieved QE is almost 90% at 850nm and 75% at 905nm. ESPROS line of products with 8×8, 160×60 and 320×240 pixel resolution is based on the same pixel and process. The production of these imagers is now established in the TSMC facility and released by ESPROS.

ESPROS CEO and founder Beat De Coi states: «After an intensive technology research & development, product design and market introduction effort, our next goal for the time-of-flight sensor products was to establish a robust supply chain, which would be able to handle the projected industry growth. With the completion of the customization project and the accomplishment of the process freeze with the global foundry leader TSMC, we are concluding a many year effort to establish this product portfolio. This is a major milestone in the development of our young company and for our customers success.»

Maria Marced, President TSMC Europe adds: «We are proud to support ESPROS with this customization project, and together we have successfully achieved Process Release to Production. TSMC’s strength in Analog, Mixed Signal and Sensor manufacturing has enabled us to achieve this milestone in the shortest possible time. We are now ready for mass production and we look forward to a long and successful collaboration with ESPROS.»