October 3, 2000, Montreal, Canada - To coincide with the public release of the much-anticipated Camera Link^CM specification at this month's AIA Vision Show West 2000 in San Jose, California, Matrox Imaging announces its official endorsement of this high-speed digital serial link for vision applications.

Developed by a consortium of industrial/scientific camera and frame grabber manufacturers, Camera Link is based on the Channel Link™ technology from National Semiconductor which includes a 28 to 4-bit transmitter/4 to 28-bit receiver, with 4 bits transmitted using LVDS over 5 twisted pairs (4 data + 1 clock).

The 28-bit Channel Link technology boasts transmission rates of up to 2.38 Gbits/sec (297.5 MBytes/sec). With a standard connector and pin-out, Camera Link uses one to three Channel Link streams (BASE, MEDIUM or FULL configurations), depending on video data format. The FULL configuration delivers impressive transmission rates of up to 680 MBytes/sec.

"As the company has done with IEEE 1394 - the standard digital interface for PCs and consumer electronics - Matrox Imaging will incorporate Camera Link^CM into its hardware and software designs in the near future," says Pierantonio Boriero, Product Line Manager for Matrox Imaging. "While, in its current state, IEEE 1394 is good for standard video resolutions and rates, Camera Link is ideal for high-resolution and/or high-rate area and line scan cameras, and we intend to provide our customers with the benefits this new interface presents. The industry can expect Matrox Imaging to announce its first Camera Link^CM product soon!"