The relative standings of the chief players
Chinese companies making a big push
Sofradir and Ulis are reorganizing in an effort to make their infrared detector businesses more efficient. In order to do so, the new management team will exploit synergies between the cooled Sofradir operations and the uncooled microbolometer operations of Ulis.
Twelve departments are being set up, among them two new ones: Technology & Strategy and Projects & Programs. All of the departments will be common to both the cooled Sofradir and uncooled Ulis businesses. Previously, the Sofradir and Ulis operations had separate groups handling these functions.
Seek Thermal – in addition to its smartphone attachments – has been aggressively courting OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to incorporate its 206 x 156/12 VOx microbolometer cores in their cameras for applications for predictive maintenance/building inspection, drones payloads, security cameras, automotive night vision, etc.
While the world is agonizing over weakness in the Chinese economy, infrared technology and the infrared industry in China are booming. They are driven not so much by commercial export markets but mostly by domestic government procurement programs and private investment spending.
Helping to accelerate this was a large government program during the past year.
At the recent CIOE China International Optoelectronic Expo in Shenzhen companies showed off the latest developments in cooled and uncooled detectors and systems.
The presence of uncooled infrared technology in China started more than 13 years ago when Ulis began to supply uncooled amorphous silicon (a-Si) microbolometers to companies such as SATIR, Guide Infrared and Dali.
Since then, FLIR Systems has also supplied VOx uncooled modules, but with strict export restrictions on array size and frame rate.
The success of uncooled detector technology developed in the west caused Chinese companies to undertake major development programs to initiate a domestic supply of both a-Si and VOx microbolometers.
The current status of these developments is summarized here.
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