Fairchild Imaging Starts Sampling its 3rd Generation sCMOS Sensor with 0.5e- Read Noise, Demos Imaging at 0.0007 Lux Illumination

While BAE Fairchild Imaging has announced the HWK4123 sensor in February, its sampling starts just now:

"The HWK4123 4/3” 4K-120 image sensor features BAE Systems’ latest sCMOS 3.0 technology. We have advanced the state of the art in low- light imaging by achieving 0.5 electron RMS read noise while providing world-class BSI visible and NIR quantum efficiency. HWK4123 is ready now for designing your next high-performance low-light imaging system.

The 9Mp HWK4123 enables night vision cameras to image below starlight, or 0.001Lux. HWK4123’s ultra-low-light imaging capability is perfect for military situational awareness and commercial surveillance applications, where compromise is not an option for threat detection and identification. Recent moonless starlight field trials have shown excellent performance at 0.0007 Lux, while achieving superior resolution to legacy I2T technology."

The picture below is said to be taken at 0.0007 lux illumination:

A product page gives more details about the new sensor: