This is a Sources Sought Notice ONLY. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not receive a response.

This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal, Request for Quotation, or an obligation on the part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to conduct a follow-on acquisition.

This Notice assists the Government in determining whether there are any domestically manufactured end product sources for the project title.

NIST does not intend to award a contract based on this Notice or otherwise pay for the information requested. No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of the submission of responses to this Notice and NISTs use of such information. Any proprietary, classified, or sensitive information should be presented as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information. In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data in the information paper.

NIST requires a Scientific-Grade CMOS camera that meets the following minimum technical requirements:

1. Camera shall be C-mount compatible
2. CMOS sensor shall operate with RGB color
3. Camera shall include thermoelectric cooling to reduce the noise level to less than 0.5 electrons/pixel under rolling shutter mode and less than 0.8 electrons/pixel in global shutter mode
4. Shall include both rolling and global shutter controllable by external signals
5. Readout noise of less than 1.5 rms electrons in rolling shutter mode
6. Readout noise of less than 2.9 rms electrons in global shutter mode
7. Camera sensor shall have at least 3.1 M pixels or more
8. CMOS sensor shall have a minimum of 2048 x 1536 pixels with a maximum pixel size 6.5 micrometer x 6.5 micrometers
9. 27000:1 dynamic range, or better, with a minimum of 16-bit dynamic range
10. Operates at 50 frames per second, or faster, at full resolution
11. Shall operate within the spectral range of 370 nm to 1100 nm
12. Shall have a peak quantum efficiency of > 60 % with at least minimum quantum efficiency across the RGB wavelengths of 40 % in Red, 40 % in Green, and 30 % in Blue.
13. Shall incorporate time stamping of the image with 1 microsecond or better resolution
14. Shall be capable of exposure times ranging from 30 microseconds to 2 seconds
15. Shall communicate with a separate PC by standard USB 3. X cable
16. Shall support application programming interfaces, including Python and MATLAB and drivers for National Instruments LabView
17. Macro programmable for stand-alone functionality
18. Weight shall be less than 1 kg

NIST anticipates issuing a Request for Quotation in the fourth quarter of FY24 and is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses.

The associated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this procurement is 334516 – Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing with a small business size standard of 1000 Employees. Please include your company’s size classification, socio-economic status, and the country of origin of the manufactured end product in any response to this notice.

After the market research results are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. Companies that can provide such items are requested to email a written response describing their abilities to rudolph.spencer@nist.gov no later than the response date for this Sources Sought Notice.

The following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this Sources Sought Notice:

1. Name, Address, UEID, CAGE code, and point of contact information of your company.
2. Any information on the company’s small business certifications, if applicable.
3. Describe your company’s capabilities as they relate to the equipment described in this notice.
4. Describe your company’s previous experience providing the equipment described in this notice.
5. Indication of whether the equipment described in this notice is currently offered via your company’s GSA Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) contract, Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC), or other existing Governmentwide contract vehicle; and, if so, the contract number(s) for those vehicles.
6. Any other relevant information not listed above that the Government should consider in finalizing its market research.
7. Place of Manufacture: Is more than 55% of item manufactured domestically, and if not where is it manufactured?

Responses are limited to a total of twelve (12) pages. The responses must be in MS Word format. Pages shall be 8½-inch x 11-inch, using Times New Roman 11 Point Font. Each page shall have adequate margins on each side (at least one inch) of the page. Header/footer information (which does not include any information to be analyzed) may be included in the 1" margin space.

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