ULIS Releases World’s Smallest 60 Hz VGA 12um Thermal Image Sensor

ALA News: ULIS launches Atto640, a 60fps VGA 12um pixel thermal image sensor for reduced overall size and cost of the camera. The target market is commercial and defense applications, such as Thermal Weapon Sights (TWS), surveillance and handheld thermography cameras, as well as Personal Vision Systems (PVS), including portable monoculars and binoculars for consumer outdoor leisure, law enforcement and border control.

ULIS is adding a VGA format to its existing QVGA Atto320 to give camera manufacturers more choice in its 12 µm product range. The interest for camera makers is that, compared to 17 µm pixel pitch technology, the 12 µm pitch enables them to use smaller and lower cost optics.

Atto640 achieves its size advantage over competing models through its Wafer Level Packaging (WLP) technology, in which the detector window is directly bonded to the wafer, a technique enabling a significant reduction in the overall dimension of the sensor. Atto640’s footprint is half the size of ULIS’ Pico640-046 (17µm) model. Since Atto640 is designed with WLP, a batch-processing technique, it is suited to high-volume production.

Samples of Atto640 are currently available, with production ramp-up slated for the end of 2019. ULIS intends to further extend its 12µm product line up with larger resolution sensors.