At Laser 2009 – World of Photonics in Munich, Germany, the
fastest CMOS ever was introduced. The Scientific CMOS chip
enables image acquisitions at 100 frames per second. Common
Imaging Detectors CCDs and EMCCDs For CCDs it is feasible to
achieve less than 3 electrons RMS readout noise, but due to the
serial readout nature of conventional CCDs, this performance
comes at the expense of frame rate. Conversely, when CCDs are
pushed to faster frame rates, resolution and field of view are
sacrificed (i.e. fewer pixels per frame to read out) or read
noise and dynamic range suffer. These devices are capable of
reading out at 20Mpixel/s per output port with a respectable
read noise of only 5 to 6 electrons RMS. At this readout speed a
single port 1.3 megapixel sensor can achieve 11 frames/s. The
Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) was introduced into the market
in 2000 and represented a significant leap forward in addressing
the mutual exclusivity of speed and noise. EMCCD cameras employ
an on-chip amplification mechani