Camera Link™ is an interface protocol that includes standardized interconnects between cameras and framegrabbers. It is based on an implementation of National Semiconductor’s Channel Link™ technology. The Camera Link standard was developed with the participation of several camera, frame grabber, and cable manufacturers, and defines a standard connector for both the frame grabber and the camera, which ensures that products bearing the Camera Link logo are interchangeable.
The Camera Link specification defines standard signals for clock, line, and frame, dedicated control and serial signals, and data width in various configurations of number of bits per pixel and pixels per clock. The Camera Link specification does not define a minimum and maximum clock speed, however the Channel Link parts’ 20-85 MHz is the de-facto standard.
EDT’s Camera Link solutions include high-speed DMA frame grabbers as well as innovative extenders that shatter Camera Link’s inherent 10 meter cable length limitation by converting the Camera Link signal to fiberoptic or coaxial for up to 10 kilometers of range in standard configurations, or up to 100 Kilometers using custom transceiver options. All EDT Camera Link products come with support for Windows and Linux.
EDT’s Camera Link products are certified to the 2.0 version of the Camera Link specification. Our driver/SDK packages include frame grabber configuration files for a large variety of cameras (click here for a partial list), but virtually any Camera Link camera can be supported, usually by modifying a simple ASCII-text configuration file.
The Camera Link specification can be acquired through AIA’s website.