AMC frame grabber module with PCIe interface

The paper presents the versatile frame grabber with Camera Link interface. The device was designed for plasma observation in thermonuclear reactor, but can easily be used in wide range of machine vision systems. Compliance with AMC and xTCA standards family enables easy scaling of the number of cameras used in system. Adoption of the industry standard PCI Express interface guarantees effortless integration with most of existing xTCA systems. The hardware and firmware design is covered, along with description of test stand in use and preliminary performance evaluation. A strong emphasis is put on analysis of feasibility of the firmware construction and available hardware resources for on-board image processing.