Leti Achievements in 2010-2011

Leti has held an annual report meeting at the end of June and published its Activities Report 2011-11. It quotes some interesting achievements in imaging area (in no particular order):

• The world’s first demonstration of noiseless infrared avalanche photodiodes (APD in HgCdTe) at room-temperature operation, with a 200x gain at 8V bias and record noise figure of 1.2: these short-wave infrared (SWIR) range (wavelength from UV up to three microns) APD photodiodes will open a wide range of applications.
• The very first fully CMOS compatible THz pixel’s 2D array: this is a viable route to manufacturing low-cost THz image sensors.
• New metallic color filter (RGB: Red, Green, Blue) for visible imagers was realized with a microelectronics-like process on 200m silicon wafers. This RGB filter with an IR rejection also eliminates the traditional IR cutting filter.
• Collective manufacturing of organic optical lenses on 200mm wafers had been achieved using innovative imprint technology, reducing shape deformation. The quality of these lenses (close to the ideal spherical shape) relaxes assembly tolerance of optical stack of the visible imager.
• In 2010, Leti demonstrated variable focus lenses (1.5 to 3mm diameter) with an optical power change of 15 m-1 (?) upon 20V electrical actuation. Collective manufacturing of several hundreds of such lenses, over a single silicon wafer, using standard microelectronics processes, promises ultra-low-cost auto focus, zoom or optical stabilization functions for cameras.