Chinese companies making a big push
In an effort to stay out of highly competitive commercial markets some microbolometer suppliers are staying out of the mid-format (320 x 240) small pixel (10-12 µm) market.
The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show displayed a push by suppliers of thermal imaging systems to have their technology included in self-driving cars.
Seek Thermal is making inroads in large fire department with its palm-sized firefighting camera.
Seek Thermal (Goleta, California) is ready to go into production with a new uncooled core based on Wafer-Level-Packaged (WLP) 320 x 240 VOx microbolometers with 12 micron pixels, a significant upgrade over the company’s existing 206 x 156/12 microbolometers.
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.