FireBird CXP over Fiber Frame Grabber (1xCOF100G-4PE8-DF) with Data Forwarding

The FireBird CoaXPress over Fiber 1xCOF100G-4PE8-DF frame grabber features a QSFP28 port that supports data rates up to 100 Gbps across four 25 Gbps lanes. Its PCI Express 4.0 x8 interface enables real-time transfer of high-resolution image data to the host system. The board will be fully compliant with CoaXPress v3.0 (released later this year) and delivers a significant increase in bandwidth and performance compared to the previous generation.

A second QSFP28 port handles data forwarding and distributes image data from a single camera to another processing node; if this node also has a data forwarding card, data can be daisy-chained. Multiple PCs can either run different algorithms on the same image stream or acquire only selected portions of the image data, all synchronized by trigger information from the master frame grabber. This enables e.g. scalable imaging systems without changing the camera setup and allows innovative system architectures like fail-safe vision systems while keeping processing performance aligned with modern camera data rates.

As a FireBird board, it is designed for ultimate performance using Active Silicon’s proprietary DMA Engine technology, “ActiveDMA”. This technical innovation applies RISC-based processor techniques, ensuring high-speed, low-latency image data transfers and zero CPU intervention.

The FireBird 1xCOF100G-DF also offers up to 8GB onboard buffer memory and comprehensive I/O, including a selection of signals available directly on the end bracket. Additional flexibility is provided through ActiveFlex-IO, enabling sophisticated trigger and output sequencing schemes.

CoaXPress over Fiber is an extension bridge protocol of the CoaXPress v2.1 Machine Vision standard for high-speed imaging in professional and industrial applications. CoaXPress over Fiber allows the CoaXPress protocol to run over a fiber optic cable. The fiber optic cables and connectors needed for transmission are sourced from mainstream Ethernet technology (100 Gigabit Ethernet), this keeps their costs to a minimum and availability plentiful. Using fiber optics for communications has significant benefits where long cable runs are required, or cameras are placed in harsh electrical environments. With the correct choice of optical transceiver module, cameras can be placed multiple kilometers from the grabber.

Active Silicon was one of the primary authors of the international CoaXPress standard, which is hosted by the JIIA (Japan Industrial Imaging Association).

FireBird is supported by Active Silicon’s software development kit, ActiveSDK. This is available as a separate item and allows rapid system development and integration. It provides comprehensive example applications and optimized libraries and supports a variety of operating systems via a common API, such as Windows and Linux (x86 and ARM, including NVIDIA Jetson). Drivers for third-party applications are also available, such as Cognex VisionPro, HALCON, Common Vision Blox, StreamPix, LabVIEW, MATLAB etc.

Full GenICam support is provided with the frame grabber drivers and this includes a GenTL Producer for data streaming as well as register accesses. In addition to functions that control the hardware, the libraries include general-purpose functions for the manipulation and display of images. A separate datasheet describes ActiveSDK in detail.

For fiber-optic cable solutions, please contact our sales team.