The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will host 70 Small-Sized Telescopes (SSTs) in the Southern Hemisphere. The SSTs are distributed over several square kilometres and provide sensitivity in an energy range between a few TeV and 300 TeV (teraelectronvolts). The dual-mirror optical design of the telescope, with a primary mirror of 4.3 metre diameter, allows a very compact camera.

The SST camera features a modular design and provides full waveform information for all 2048 pixels with a sampling rate of one giga-sample per second. The camera is equipped with silicon photomultipliers and a prototype has been successfully tested on the ASTRI telescope in Sicily in 2018/2019. We are expecting to start SST construction in Chile in 2023 and CTA operations with the SSTs in 2025.

The SST camera collaboration includes institutes from Australia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the UK. DESY is leading the Systems Engineering work package and is responsible for the development of the cameras' back-end electronics, which make use of embedded systems for triggering, timing and data acquisition.