The present paper reviews the recent developments of electron-bombarded charge coupled devices (EBCCD) for low-light-level imaging. The EBCCD eliminates the complicated image transfer chain associated with conventional image intensifier fibrecoupled CCD (ICCD) by integrating a thinned back-illuminated CCD directly into the vacuum of the image tube in replacement of the phosphor screen. The photoelectrons emitted from the photocathode are “proximity focusing” or “sharp focusing” directly onto the electron sensitive CCD, and the video-signal occurs. It has been shown that the EBCCD image tubes offer nearly noiseless gain, high signal to noise ratio and excellent MTF and, for this reason, are superior to conventional ICCD approaches under all light level conditions. This paper will give a detailed description on the thinned back-illuminated CCD imager design and fabrication, such as CCD chip thinning and thinned CCD backside treatment, as well as the technical parameters of different kinds of inverter type EBCCD. The performance of the proximity type EBCCD, the inverter type EBCCD and ICCD will also be compared and analyzed. Finaly, the present paper shows that these new, high performance devices of EBCCD are in an advantageous position for many applications in low-light-lev-el surveillance imaging, high energy physics and medical diagnostics.