ULIS, a manufacturer of infrared (IR) imaging sensors for thermography, security and surveillance, automotive and military applications, announces today the appointment of Dr. Christel-Loic (Chris) Tisse as chief technical officer.
French-Australian Dr. Tisse, brings 13 years of specialist knowledge in optical (visible-light & thermal) imaging science to ULIS. He has extensive expertise in computational imaging, a multi-disciplinary field involving the co-design and joint-optimization of optoelectronic methods, image sensors and image/video processing techniques. These are used to enhance or extend the capabilities of digital imaging systems. Through his industrial experiences in Europe and Asia-Pacific, he has built a track record in technology innovation and transfer, product development leadership and international R&D engineering team management.
At ULIS, he will be responsible for setting the technology roadmap, expanding the company’s intellectual property portfolio and leading product design and development.
ULIS supplies high volume, infrared image sensors, known as microbolometers. The market for these IR products is expected to grow from USD 230 million in 2012 to USD 380 million by 2018, according to Yole Developpement (July 2013). The next growth opportunities are expected in automotive and smart building automation.
ULIS has spearheaded several infrared technology innovations. It was the first to introduce XGA format 17 micron pixel pitch IR products to the market. It recently introduced the first line of 80x80 thermal sensor arrays that address new needs in applications aimed at maximum energy efficiency. It has invested EUR 20 million in a new manufacturing plant to move production from 150mm to 200mm silicon CMOS wafers.
Dr. Tisse joins ULIS from MTech-Imaging Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based company he co-founded that specializes in offering innovative low-light, night-vision and thermal infrared imaging technologies. He served as CTO for three years, where he raised more than EUR 2.5M in research funding. He also grew the company from a 2-man start-up to a highly skilled team of 15. From 2008 – 2010, he was a senior research fellow at the Institute for Infocomm Research (A STAR) and at the Interactive and Digital Media Institute. His research investigated solid-state refocusing and visual analytics techniques for exploring semiotic models of visual inference processes. Dr. Tisse also provided consulting activities in the area of co-design of hybrid optical-digital imaging systems and was given an honorary position as consultant advisor at National University of Singapore.
Prior to that, Dr. Tisse spent a year with DxO Labs, a fast-growing start-up developing Extended Depth-of-Field (EDoF) technologies for camera phone applications. There, he served as deputy chief scientist and research director of the B2B division. Between 2003– 2007, Dr. Tisse led the 'Small Flyer' project at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney. His work focused on visually guided Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), in particular on designing and developing innovative computational camera systems and algorithms for wide-angle imaging and depth perception. While working as a research scientist in embedded imaging and multimodal biometric systems at STMicroelectronics, Dr. Tisse earned his PhD in microelectronics from the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics and Microelectronics (LIRMM) at the University of Montpellier in 2003.
ULIS, a subsidiary of Sofradir and GE Equity, specializes in the design and manufacture of high quality infrared imaging sensors for thermography, security and surveillance, automotive and military applications. It enables makers of consumer electronics and infrared equipment to produce low weight, low power consumption and cost-effective thermal cameras in large volume.
ULIS is ranked number two in the world for infrared (IR) sensors delivered. It is one of the few to use amorphous silicon-based technology that provides unusually high uniformity, a key parameter for high-resolution imaging. Due to its amorphous silicon technology, a robust and reliable semiconductor material proven for its industrial production capacity, the company also achieves large-scale production, which is enabling it to meet the growing demand from existing commercial and emerging markets. ULIS is located in Veurey-Voroize, near Grenoble (France), and employs 150 people.
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