A parallel plate avalanche chamber specially suited for the high resolution detection of minimum ionizing particles (m.i.p.) is presented. The anode is made of a thin germanium layer with a sheet resistivity > 1 MΩ/p[ while the cathode is made of a nickel mesh having 600 line pairs/in. A chess board of pads placed behind the anode plane is used to obtain the positional information. A 100% detection efficiency, a 40 ns (fwhm) time resolution and a spatial resolution better than 140 μm (fwhm) for both coordinates have been measured.