IRnova continues its expansion of production capacity by bringing online a completely refurbished wet etch area, new automated microscopes and a new system for PECVD deposition. Together with the already existing lineup of steppers, automated lithography wafer tracks and 1300 m2 clean room area, it will further enhance the capability to answer the strong demand for its latest generation of detectors.
"We have absolutely no bottle necks in production", says Ulrika Nordén, CEO of IRnova. "The uniformity and manufacturability of our QWIP and T2SL technologies, combined with our team's deep knowledge about how to process them, enables us to produce FPAs at a rate far exceeding the market needs."
The secret lies in the extreme uniformity of the III-V material. "With some older technologies, you start running into yield issues with large FPAs or high pixel resolutions because the material is not uniform across the wafer. Here we can do VGA, SXGA or even 2K, it doesn't matter - the yield is kept high across large wafer formats and array sizes. We can make hundreds of wafers per year without even going to two work shifts, and multiply that with several dozens of focal plane arrays per wafer… you do the math", continues Nordén.
IRnova has produced thousands of detectors since its start in 1986, having been an independent company since 2007. With the release of the Njord MW, its first SXGA T2SL detector, the production pace is set to increase drastically.