Go to Cart
xit-thunderbolt-camera-vsd-award-2016

xiT Thunderbolt cameras win VSD Innovators Award 2016

XIMEA's Thunderbolt 2 cameras convince the jury at The Vision Show 2016 in Boston
June 16, 2016 12:00 AM

Thunderbolt 2 moves from consumer devices into industrial cameras

Münster, Germany – June 16, 2016 – XIMEA's xiT Thunderbolt cameras received a Bronze award in the Vision Systems Design 2016 Innovators Awards. The magazine presented the awards on May 3, 2016, at a reception on the show floor of The Vision Show in Boston, USA.

Thunderbolt 2 instead of a frame grabber

In 2016, fast image transfer in machine vision usually meant a frame grabber card in the PC. The xiT line skipped that step. XIMEA took Thunderbolt 2, an Intel interface known mainly from consumer devices, and built it into an industrial camera. Image data flowed through the cable straight into the computer memory at up to 20 Gbit/s.

With a fiber-optic cable, the camera could sit up to 60 m away from the PC. The housing measured 26 x 26 x 38 mm, and the camera could run on bus power, so a single cable handled data and power.

The free XIMEA API/SDK supported Windows and macOS.

Two xiT models: MT200 and MT023

The xiT line covered two different jobs. The MT200 was a high-resolution industrial camera for detailed images, the MT023 a fast machine vision camera for moving scenes.
 

XIMEA xiT MT200 Thunderbolt 2 camera with 20 Mpix CMOSIS CMV20000 sensor, front view

Model

Sensor

Resolution

Frame rate

Bandwidth

MT200

CMOSIS CMV20000, 6.4 µm pixels

20 Mpix

up to 32 FPS (12 bit)

20 Gbit/s

MT023

Sony IMX174 (Pregius)

2.3 Mpix

up to 165 FPS

10 Gbit/s

From xiLab prototype to certified Thunderbolt camera

The award came only months after the xiT moved from prototype to standard product:
 

  • November 2014: First xiT prototypes shown at VISION 2014 in Stuttgart, as part of the xiLab concept cameras

  • Summer 2015: Showcased at the Intel Developer Forum, followed by several Thunderbolt plugfests

  • December 8, 2015: The MT200 passes certification by an independent laboratory (news)

  • February 8, 2016: The MT023 follows

  • May 3, 2016: Bronze at the Vision Systems Design Innovators Awards

With certification, XIMEA was allowed to ship both models with the Thunderbolt logo for PC and Mac.

XIMEA xiT Thunderbolt camera family: MT200 with 20 Mpix sensor and compact MT023 models with Sony IMX174

Key facts

  • Award: Vision Systems Design 2016 Innovators Awards, Bronze level

  • Presented: May 3, 2016, The Vision Show, Boston, USA; honorees published June 16, 2016

  • Product: xiT Thunderbolt 2 industrial cameras, models MT200 and MT023

  • Sensors: CMOSIS CMV20000 (20 Mpix), Sony IMX174 (2.3 Mpix)

  • Interface: Thunderbolt 2, up to 20 Gbit/s, no frame grabber

Bronze at The Vision Show 2016 in Boston

2016 was the second year of the Innovators Awards program. Eight independent judges rated the entries, among them experts from PVI Systems, GE Global Research, Procter & Gamble and Wageningen UR. Their criteria were originality, innovation, impact on designers, integrators and users, new market needs, novel technology and productivity.

Editor-in-chief Andy Wilson and publisher Alan Bergstein handed over the awards at The Vision Show. In its list of honorees, Vision Systems Design pointed out that the xiT needs no frame grabber and transfers 20 Gbit/s. The full list is on vision-systems.com.
 

For XIMEA, it was the second Innovators Award in a row. In 2015, the jury had honored the xiQ hyperspectral camera developed with imec.

Need fast image transfer without a frame grabber? Tell us about your application, and we will find the right camera for it:

Get in touch

Editor's note: The xiT series has since been discontinued. Specifications remain available for the xiT models in the XIMEA camera finder.

Thunderbolt and the Thunderbolt logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Related articles

Latest articles