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The
development of the CameraLink interface
As cameras get faster traditional
LVDS cabling implementations have become more complex
and costly. Also with every supplier using unique connectors
interfacing cameras to frame grabbers has become difficult.
The new camera link interface standard was created by
the World leading manufacturers of cameras and Frame grabbers
and is based on the channel link interface by National
Semiconductor. By serialising the from 28 bits and clock
down to 4 LVDS streams plus clock the cable bulk is reduced
significantly. Also by using a standard connector setup
all manufacturers and can select off the shelf assemblies
reducing the cost and time to interface machine vision
cameras. Camera link has been designed to scale and is
offered in three configurations Base using one cable,
Medium and Full using two cables and providing up to 64
bits of data at 62.5Mhz, that's 500MBytes/second.
Due to the serialisation
of data camera link is far more demanding on cable specification
than standard LVDS applications. Although some standard
LVDS cable might appear to work at first glance, data
corruption is a real possibility, especially in robotic
applications where the shielding braid deteriorates
over time through fatigue. 3M were invited to define
the cable specification by the Camera link standards
committee and developed specific cable types to meet
the demanding high speed timings. In addition all the
performance specifications are tested and not theoretical
so you know that you are getting quality.
For applications that demand
longer lengths, Firstsight Vision can also supply Camera
link repeaters, and for very long runs a fibre optic
transmission option is
available
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