CoaXPress

The CoaXPress (CXP) standard was released in December 2010. It provides a high speed interface between cameras and frame grabbers and allows long cable lengths. In its simplest form, CoaXPress uses a single coaxial cable to: transmit data from a camera to a frame grabber at up to 6.25 Gbits/s; simultaneously transmit control data and triggers from the frame grabber to the camera at 20.8 Mbits/s; and provide up to 13W of power to the camera. Link aggregation is used when higher speeds are needed, with more than one coaxial cable sharing the data. Version 1.1 allows use of the smaller DIN 1.0/2.3 connector.

Speed
CoaXPress supports real-time triggers, including triggering very high speed line scan cameras. With the standard 20.8 Mbits/s uplink to the camera, trigger latency is 3.4 microseconds (μs), or with the optional high speed uplink, it is typically 150 ns. CoaXPress already supports the fastest cameras on the market with significant headroom by allowing up to 3.6 Gbytes/s with 6 links in one connector.

Receiver Device

Frame grabber.

Cable

At 1.25 Gbits/s link speed (CXP-1), CoaXPress supports cable lengths of over 100m; at 3.125 Gbits/s (CXP-3), the maximum length is 85m; and even at the maximum 6.25 Gbits/s (CXP-6), 35m cables with 6mm diameter can be used. Longer lengths are possible with larger diameter cables.

Connectors

The widely used BNC connector and smaller DIN 1.0/2.3. The DIN connector can also be combined into a multiway connector.

Camera Power Supply

Through CoaXPress cable.

Other Differentiators

Support for GenICam, including GenApi, SFNC, and GenTL (including image streaming) is mandatory. IIDC2 support is optional.