E2v wins CCD imager deal for European space probe.

The article reports that the company E2v Technologies has won the contract to supply 1.5Gpixel worth of charge coupled devices (CCD) image sensors for the European Space Agency's GAIA space mission, scheduled to fly in 2011. The company's CCDs are in single crystal silicon with a polysilicon/metal/dielectric fab process. The company will produce 170 chips, each 4500 lines x 1966 rows wide. The GAIA contract is worth 9.6m pounds over the coming three years and should make use of the six-inch line E2v.