Lynred

History

Sofradir was established in 1986 by Thales, Sagem and CEA-Leti. The goal of establishing Sofradir was to create an organization that developed and produced IR detectors based on the focal plane array (FPA) technology developed at CEA-Leti. The Infrared Laboratory (Laboratoire InfraRouge) located within the public research institute at CEA-Leti located in Grenoble, France was established to perform research in order to develop future generations of FPAs. Sofradir was to bring these new generations of IR detectors to mature production levels.

Sofradir headquarters are located in Chatenay-Malabry (near Paris) while the development and production facilities are located in Veurey-Voroize near Grenoble. These facilities first became operational by October 1987 with MCT technologies transferred to it from the CEA-Leti infrared laboratories.

Sofradir was initially headed by Jean Louis Teszner from 1986 until end of 2000. Because of Teszner's significant experience, Sofradir quickly became the largest producer of MCT products in Europe due primarily to the research transferred to it from CEA-Leti. Low rate initial production of certain infrared detectors began in 1991, with mass production beginning in 1994. In parallel, the first space program (HELIOS II) also began in 1994, launching space activity at Sofradir.

In 2000, Sofradir was headed by Philippe Bensussan as chairman and CEO. Sofradir continued its development and production with second generation (TDI scanning) and third generation (staring) infrared detectors as well as others. The company also participated in the production of high performance infrared common modules (SADA II) for the US Army as well as 2D staring arrays mainly for use with missiles.

At the beginning of 2000, Sofradir began delivering QWIP detectors in cooperation with Thales Research and Technologies (TRT) and uncooled products based on the microbolometers technology which had been developed at CEA-Leti. Following these first deliveries, ULIS (a subsidiary of Sofradir at 85%) was established. (General Electric owns the remaining 15% of ULIS). ULIS would ultimately become the second-largest producer of microbolometer-based thermal imaging sensors.