Researchers from three imaging companies announced development of the Scientific CMOS (sCMOS; www.scmos.com) during Laser World of Photonics, held in Munich, Germany in June 2009. The new device offers a number of features that operate simultaneously: extremely low noise, rapid frame rates, wide dynamic range, high quantum efficiency, high resolution, and a large field of view.
The sensor was cooperatively developed by Andor Technology (Belfast, UK; www.andor.com), Fairchild Imaging (Milpitas, CA, USA; www.fairchildimaging.com), and PCO (Kelheim, Germany; www.pco.de), and has applications in biomedical research, astronomy, and security and defense.
The researchers said that sCMOS can be considered unique in its ability to concurrently deliver on several key parameters. Performance highlights of the first sCMOS technology sensor include 5.5-Mpixel (2560 × 2160 pixels) format; read noise of <2 e- rms @ 30 frames/s and <3 e- rms @ 100 frames/s; 100-frames/s maximum rate; 6.5-mm pixel size; dynamic range of >16,000:1 @ 30 frames/s; QEmax of 60%; and rolling or global shutter.
