Sofradir has announced that it will transfer its headquarters to Palaiseau on the Plateau de Saclay, a long-established and growing hi-tech centre for materials and optics research in the Paris region. The relocation is a result of Sofradir’s need to expand and increase production.
Sofradir are a developer and manufacturer of advanced infrared detectors for military, space, commercial and scientific applications. It will install the manufacturing and research facilities of three of its infrared technologies under a single roof by spring 2014.
At the new 4,000 square meter site, Sofradir will create its second technological centre, focused on advanced infrared imaging technologies. The headquarters are currently in Chatenay-Malabry, near Paris, with the main production plant near Grenoble, France.
Philippe Bensussan, chairman and CEO of Sofradir, said: ‘We aim to replicate the environment in Grenoble, with the close relationships between industry, universities and research centres that have been key to the successful innovations we’ve accomplished using the single high performance IR detector technology we have owned for the last 25 years. I am proud that we will take an active part in the expansion of the science and technology cluster in Palaiseau.’
IR detectors are advanced technology components at the centre of multiple military, space, commercial and scientific applications. Sofradir exports 80 per cent of its IR products for use in military equipment such as thermal imagers, missile seekers, surveillance systems, machine vision, targeting systems or observation satellites. It produced 6,000 IR detectors based on its flagship IR technology (mercury cadmium telluride), the highest unit volume produced in this category.
