The electronics industry is driven by the trend for more GOPS (Giga-Operations per Second) per mm3. This requires smaller technology nodes in wafer manufacturing, a drive to advanced packaging, as well as back-end inspection of the smaller interfacing components like micro-bumps, distribution layers, etc.

Two interfaces—GigE and USB—have been dominating the machine vision industry for the last five years. One supports long cable lengths and easy integration of multiple cameras, while the other offers higher bandwidth and true plug-and-play convenience. 

The new standard in single-link interface speed, 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GigE), enables users to take full advantage of the latest generation of high-performance sensors with their higher resolution, frame rates, bit depth and dynamic range.

In 2000, the Camera Link standard was adopted as one of the first machine vision standards. Now more than 17 years old, it has seen some changes and several other standards have emerged and been adopted by the industry.

With the continually increasing demand on framerates, bit depths, and resolution, interface standards must adapt to these changes with new ways to transfer data with increased speed and robustness.

High bandwidth is essential when transmitting big data volumes in image processing systems. However, available interface technologies like GigE or CoaXPress are the bottleneck when talking about bandwidth. By pre-processing the image in the camera and applying data compression technologies this bottleneck can be mitigated.

When you are setting up a machine vision system, your choice of camera will depend on the objects that you want to inspect, the necessary speed, lighting and temperature, and available space. And not to forget—the system costs.

The term machine vision refers to the ability of machines to visually perceive their environment. A typical setting consists of a camera for capturing the images, a cable which links the camera to a PC, and the PC which does the image processing.

Video interfaces and cabling have played a significant role in bringing new capabilities to machine vision and supporting automation’s migration into a broadening range of markets.

Advances in camera, sensor, and video interface technologies have helped power the continuing development of machine vision solutions for manufacturing and quality inspection that far surpass the abilities of any human.