Fairchild Imaging - CCD, CMOS, OEM CCD Cameras

Bigger is Better

When photons and time are limited, Fairchild Imaging knows that Bigger is Better! Bigger CCDs equate to greater light gathering power providing superior results in less time. Moreover, Fairchild Imaging's wafer scale CCDs deliver larger field of view and higher resolution (16 Megapixel) than almost all commercially available scientific imagers.

High Performance Optical Imaging

Consider the application of gel electrophoresis: in this technique analytes are separated with an electric field applied to a slab of agarose gel. The data set is collected by imaging the gel with a high-performance CCD camera. Unfortunately, many systems employ a small interline CCD for this purpose and suffer long exposure times as a result. A typical CCD used in this application has an 8.77 x 6.6 mm imaging area (10.98 mm diagonal). With an image sensor this small, one has to demagnify the object to capture the entire image and light is lost in proportion to the square of the demagnification. Fairchild Imaging has developed the Peregrine 447 to overcome the limitations found with smaller sensors in low-light imaging applications. With a 43.44 mm diagonal the 447 has more than 15 times the light gathering power of the smaller interline CCD. Image acquisition that would have required 10 minutes is now accomplished in less than 40 seconds. And with a back-illuminated CCD, you could gain another factor of two to three in sensitivity. Take a look at the Peregrine 447 for yourself today and see if your application can benefit from an order of magnitude improvement!

High Performance X-ray Imaging

Another application area that finds extreme benefit from the large, wafer-scale image sensors provided by Fairchild Imaging is x-ray imaging. Whether your specialty is radiography, non-destructive testing or crystallography, you can always discover more with larger and more sensitive detectors. Fairchild Imaging is the world leader in large area CCD x-ray detectors providing the largest CCDs and the largest fiber optic tapers in the world. Our Condor 486:90 delivers nearly a 90-mm diagonal input without the need of a fiber-optic taper. Compare that to a detector based on a smaller CCD that requires a 2.3:1 taper to achieve a similar size. Again the light is lost as the demagnification squared, so the Condor will have more than 5 times the light gathering power. That means you could either get your results five times faster or you could optimize your x-ray scintillator for other performance characteristics such as higher resolution. The thinner high-resolution scintillator would be dimmer, but the increased efficiency of the Condor would balance that effect and provide superior results in less time!

Because of the large size (60-mm x 60-mm) of the 4k x 4k CCD 486, the Condor is also ideally mated to the world’s largest fiber optic tapers. The Condor 486:200 boasts a 200-mm fiber optic taper with only a 2.2:1 demagnification ratio. The next largest CCD on the market today is less than 50-mm on a side. With a system based on that detector you would give up more than 50% of your signal! Moreover, it’s only a 2k x 2k so you also give up 4 times the number of resolution elements. Discover the Condor for yourself. We think you’ll agree: Bigger is Better!



CCD CMOS Scientific Camera Systems Line Scan Camera Systems Links Sitemap



Content © Fairchild Imaging. Technology & Design © All Rights Reserved.