frame grabber

July 20, 2026

BitFlow’s Axion 1xE-DS9T Frame Grabber Brings Uncompromising Reliability to Space-Constrained Machine Vision Systems

WOBURN, MA, JULY 20, 2026 — BitFlow, Inc., a division of Advantech, offers the Axion 1xE-DS9T, a Camera Link 2.0 compliant frame grabber engineered for systems where board space is at a premium but image acquisition performance is non-negotiable. It is another example of the customer driven versatility and adaptability that BitFlow has been delivering for decades.

The Axion 1xE-DS9T takes the proven BitFlow Axion architecture and reworks its I/O to fit through a single 9-pin connector mounted directly on the board bracket with no external I/O cable required. It’s a purpose-built option for OEMs and system integrators designing compact enclosures, multi-camera arrays, or panel-mount installations where BitFlow’s standard CONN-DEV-C62 I/O Cable simply won’t fit, and where the full breadth of its I/O options isn’t needed in the first place.

“Not all applications require every I/O pin of the CONN-DEV-C62,” noted Donal Waide, Director of Business Development, iSystems, Advantech. “The Axion 1xE-DS9T has the same Camera Link 2.0 acquisition performance BitFlow customers rely on, in a physical footprint that fits where the full I/O breakout can’t. It’s the right tool for the job when space is the constraint, not capability.”

The Axion 1xE-DS9T connects over the PCIe x4 Gen 2 interface, giving machine vision systems the bandwidth and low-latency data path needed for demanding acquisition tasks. It supports a single Base, Medium, Full, or 80-bit (10-tap) Camera Link camera at clock speeds up to 85 MHz, covering the vast majority of Camera Link camera configurations in the field today. Power over Camera Link (PoCL) is fully supported, including dual-connector PoCL configurations, alongside standard non-PoCL cameras, giving integrators flexibility in camera selection without added external power hardware.

Where standard Axion 1xE frame grabbers route its full I/O set through the CONN-DEV-C62 cable for multi-camera triggering, encoder inputs, and general-purpose I/O, the DS9T condenses this down to a 9-pin connector on the board bracket itself. The tradeoff is a limited, purpose-fit I/O set: single-ended TTL encoder support only. For applications that don’t require differential encoder inputs or the full breakout’s channel count, this is a feature, not a compromise — fewer cables, less enclosure space, and a cleaner install.

Under the hood, the Axion 1xE-DS9T runs on BitFlow’s proprietary StreamSync and FlowThru technologies. StreamSync keeps image acquisition tightly synchronized with system timing, while FlowThru manages DMA channel efficiency without requiring on-board frame memory, moving image data straight to host memory for lower latency and simpler system design.

The Axion 1xE-DS9T is fully supported under both Windows and Linux with native driver support for the software environments engineers already use, including MATLAB, LabVIEW, HALCON, and VisionPro. Existing Axion-based applications can move to the Axion 1xE-DS9T with minimal integration overhead.

July 6, 2026

DDR-Free Architecture Keeps BitFlow Frame Grabbers Available Amid Global Memory Crisis

As the global DRAM shortage enters a critical phase, driven by insatiable AI data center demand consuming upwards of 70% of worldwide memory production, frame grabber manufacturers dependent on onboard DDR4 memory are facing lead times exceeding 20–30 weeks, allocation rationing, and, in many cases, complete product unavailability. BitFlow, Inc., a division of Advantech, is not one of them.

BitFlow’s entire product line, including the Axion, Aon, Claxon, and Cyton series, is shipping now. The reason: BitFlow never relied on DDR memory in the first place.

“When BitFlow adopted scatter-gather DMA for our frame grabbers, the goals were to use zero CPU cycles and guarantee the absolute minimum latency between when a pixel leaves the camera and when the user’s program can begin processing it. The fact that it also means we have no DDR dependency is paying dividends right now,” noted Donal Waide, Director of Business Development, iSystems, Advantech. “Our competitors that built their frame grabbers around commodity DRAM are on backorder. We’re not. BitFlow customers can order today and receive product.”

SUPPLY CHAIN DELAYS INTO 2027

Hyperscalers and AI infrastructure builders have locked in production capacity at Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, redirecting wafer capacity to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI GPUs at a rate that consumes 3–4 times more silicon per gigabyte than standard DDR. The result: DDR4 production is being phased out, DDR5 supply is constrained, and the manufacturers building frame grabbers around onboard DRAM buffers are caught in the crossfire.

Supply chain conditions as of June 2026:

DDR4 and DDR5 lead times: 20–30+ weeks in many regions
DRAM supply growth running below 16% YoY while AI demand outpaces it
Allocation rationing is standard; some retailers are limiting purchase quantities
Competitors relying on onboard DDR for frame buffering are facing product availability constraints

BITFLOW’S ANSWER: NO DDR

While other frame grabber manufacturers use DRAM/SDRAM to buffer entire images and frames, BitFlow took a fundamentally different engineering path. Rather than staging image data on expensive, supply-constrained memory chips, BitFlow’s boards move data directly to where it belongs: the host PC’s system RAM.

Waide commented, “BitFlow’s original technology for this was known as Flow Thru’ technology, and about a decade ago we created a new design called StreamSync acquisition.”

BitFlow relies on three precisely engineered components:

Scatter/Gather DMA Engine: A highly optimized DMA controller streams image data at full sustained throughput directly into user-allocated buffers in the PC’s system or GPU memory. Zero staging. Zero redundant copies.
Small FIFO Buffers: Compact, purpose-built buffers handle the asynchronous nature of the PCIe bus and manage transient data flow — not frame storage.
SRAM for Control Tables: Static SRAM holds VCTAB/HCTAB configuration: video timing parameters and camera control signals. This is configuration logic, not image memory, and it requires no DDR whatsoever.

As a result, latency is eliminated, CPU overhead is slashed, and the BitFlow frame grabbers ship today, not six months from now.

BitFlow’s direct-DMA architecture supports sustained high data rates that match the demands of modern high-speed imaging interfaces including Camera Link, CoaXPress, and others. For machine vision, semiconductor inspection, life sciences, and defense applications where throughput and determinism are non-negotiable, the BitFlow design delivers:

Sustained high-bandwidth data transfers directly to host system memory
Eliminated frame transfer latency versus onboard-buffer designs
Reduced CPU overhead through hardware-managed DMA
Native compatibility with GPU-direct workflows where applicable.

AVAILABLE NOW

BitFlow frame grabbers are in production and available for immediate order.

July 21, 2025

BitFlow CoaXPress Frame Grabber Aids in SuperKEKB Particle Accelerator Beam Failure Troubleshooting

The SuperKEKB particle accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan, was constructed to achieve the highest particle collision rates in the world, enabling next-generation investigation of fundamental physics. SuperKEKB is unique in its employment of a nano-beam scheme that squeezes beams to nanometre-scale sizes at the interaction point, along with the use of a large crossing angle between the colliding beams to enhance electron–positron collision efficiency.

In its quest to reach the world’s highest collision rates, SuperKEKB has repeatedly suffered from Sudden Beam Loss (SBL) events. An SBL event occurs when vertical beam current is reduced by ten percent or more, leading to the process being aborted within a few turns lasting only 20 to 30 milliseconds. It is unknown what specifically invokes an SBL event. According to one theory, beam orbit oscillation causes beam sizes to significantly increase a few turns before an SBL occurrence. Yet it was also observed size escalation started earlier than beam oscillation. Increases have been measured to be up to ten times larger than the usual beam size.

SBL is the biggest obstacle to the longterm stability of SuperKEKB beam operation. It also has the potential to seriously harm accelerator components within the electrons or positrons rings, which are situated side-by-side within a tunnel. Determining the source behind SBL incidents and putting suppressive measures in place were crucial.

IDENTIFYING THE ORIGIN OF SBL

To help uncover the root cause of SBL and ensure redundancy, the SuperKEKB team developed two turn-by-turn beam size monitors operating at different wavelengths; one, an X-ray system for beam size diagnostics, and the other, a visible light monitor focusing on beam orbit variation and size increases.

The 99.4 kHz revolution frequency of the particle accelerator made it necessary to use imaging components compliant with the CoaXPress 2.0 (CXP-12) high-speed standard. In both the X-ray and visible light systems, data transfer rates up to 50 gigabits per second were achieved by aggregating four links between a Mikrotron EoSens 1.1 CXP2 CMOS camera and a BitFlow Claxon CXP4 PCIe quad link frame grabber. During data acquisition, the Mikrotron’s camera shutter was operated in precise synchronization with SuperKEKB’s 99.4 kHz revolution frequency. Captured image data was continuously stored in the BitFlow frame grabber’s 2GB ring buffer. It was only when a beam aborted did the data in the ring buffer move to the disk server for offline analysis.

The Claxon CXP4 is also capable of handling 4 x 1-link cameras, 2 x 2-link cameras or any combination of these. Each link supports data acquisition of up to 12.5 Gb/s. The highly deterministic, low latency frame grabber will also provide a low speed uplink on all links, accurate camera synchronization, and 13W of Safe Power to all cameras per link.

By reducing the size of the camera’s Region-of-Interest (ROI), the X-ray monitoring system captured 99,400 frames per second, while the visible light system used an ROI twice the size of the X-ray, operating at a speed of 49,700 frames per second. The beam profile was measured with one shot every two turns instead of every turn.

DIFFERENTIATING BEAM PATTERNS

The frame grabber’s CXP-12 transmission speeds empowered SuperKEKB physicists to accurately differentiate between the various beam patterns developing before SBL events occurred.

Combining observations from both the X-ray and visible light monitoring systems, a possible SBL event scenario evolved. Physicists theorized changes in the beam orbit may lead to a sudden increase in vacuum pressure in the damping section of the SuperKEKB with irradiation being the possible source. In this theory, when the beam hits a vacuum component, such as a beam collimator, the result is a sudden loss in beam current and an SBL event. However, this has not been fully clarified. To explore other possibilities, SuperKEKB is developing more advanced X-ray beam-size monitors that combines a silicon-strip sensor with a powerful ADC.

Visible light beam size monitor showing four cables connected to a Mikrotron CXP-12 camera running into a BitFlow Claxon CXP4 PCIe quad frame grabber to achieve 50GB/sec data transfer rates (Image courtesy of SuperKEKB

Claxon CXP4 frame grabber

January 21, 2025

BitFlow Fiber-over-CoaXPress Frame Grabber Integrated with NVIDIA TensorRT in Real-time Human Pose Estimation

WOBURN, MA, JANUARY 8, 2025 — In collaboration with its parent company, Advantech, BitFlow announced today that it has successfully integrated its Claxon Fiber-over-CoaXPress (CoF) frame grabber with an Advantech AI Inference edge computer and Optronis Cyclone Fiber 5M camera in developing a real-time human pose estimation project accelerated by NVIDIA TensorRT deep learning.

One of the most advanced of its kind, the pose estimation system can provide low latency analysis of athletic movement, gaming, physical therapy, AR/VR, fall detection, and online coaching. Traditional approaches to pose estimation required multiple cameras and special suits with markers, rendering it impractical for most applications. AI-driven computer vision has elevated this field where a single camera can now capture professional-grade, real-time pose estimation.

With a processing time of less than 2 milliseconds, the system is capable of acquiring 2560 x 1916 resolution images at 600 frames-per-second. Once output to the BitFlow Claxon CoF frame grabber, the Claxon’s Direct Memory Access transmits images directly into the Advantech computer’s GPU memory, reducing bottlenecks and freeing up the CPU to apply an NVIDIA pre-trained algorithm that searches each frame for people. If the algorithm locates a person, it calculates a crude skeleton location and overlays the displayed image with a “stick figure” representing the person’s bone structure.

The Advantech MIC-733-AO AI edge computer is embedded with an NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin that natively supports the NVIDIA TensorRT ecosystem of APIs for deep learning inference. An optional PCIe x8 iModule is available for the MIC-733-AO to accommodate BitFlow CoaXPress and Camera Link frame grabbers.

High throughput demands of the system required the use of the BitFlow Claxon CoF model. Designed to extend the benefits of CoaXPress over fiber optic cables, the Claxon Cof is a quad CXP-12 PCIe Gen 3 frame grabber that supports all QFSP+ compatible fiber cable assemblies. In addition to high speeds, fiber cables are immune to EMI and is capable of running lengths well over a kilometer, further than Ethernet’s 100 meter limitations.

Real-time human pose system incorporating BitFlow CoF frame grabber, Advantech AI edge computer, and Optronis fiber camera, accelerated by NVIDIA TensorRT deep learning

January 27, 2022

BitFlow Frame Grabber Helps Researchers Generate 3D Structural Images of Biological Tissues

WOBURN, MA, JANUARY 24, 2022 — Biology researchers at Indiana University¹ have developed an integrated system combining high-resolution optical coherence microscopy (HR-OCM) with dual-channel scanning confocal fluorescence microscopy (DC-SCFM) to enable 3D visual evaluation of cell activities involved in pupil developmental and disease conditions. Still in its experimental stages, this dual-modality 3D system simultaneously co-registers reflectance and fluorescence signals, giving it the ability to accurately track structural and functional changes in live specimens over time. Indiana University researchers hope to use their system to enable new investigations of biological processes in small animal models.
A BitFlow Axion Camera Link frame grabber is a critical component of the hybrid system. It acquires the output signal from a spectrometer equipped with a Teledyne e2v high-speed line-scan camera operating at the rate of 250 kHz. A lateral resolution of 2-μm and axial resolution of 2.4-μm is captured in tissue over a field-of-view of 1.1 mm ×1.1 mm. The analog scanning signals, as well as the trigger signals for the BitFlow frame grabber, are generated synchronously through a four-channel analog output data acquisition card. Simultaneous recording of HR-OCM and DC-SCFM data was performed using custom software developed in LabVIEW 2017.
As data generated by faster, higher-resolution Camera Link cameras continues to grow exponentially, the Axion’s PCIe Gen 2 interface, with its StreamSync™ DMA optimized for modern computers, is needed to optimize their full performance. Features such as easier switching between different tap formats, a powerful acquisition engine, and a more flexible I/O and timing generator are all readily available in a dedicated low cost CL Base orientated frame grabber.
During development, researchers applied different strategies to enable the simultaneous recording of information, as well as to overcome the focal plane mismatch between both imaging modalities. The system’s performances were evaluated in imaging fluorescence microspheres embedded in multi-layer tape and silicone phantom.
The combined system is synergistic in generating structural and functional information of samples; the DC-SCFM allows for the discrimination between different fluorophores, while the HR-OCM enables the 3D localization of the features inside tissue samples and enabled the depth localization.

1 “Development of high-speed, integrated high-resolution optical coherence microscopy and dual-channel fluorescence microscopy for the simultaneous co-registration of reflectance and fluorescence signals” Reddikumar Maddipatla, PatriceTankam School of Optometry, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA

November 5, 2020

Neon-DIF Frame Grabber is BitFlow’s Upgrade Solution to Older Machine Vision Systems Running Differential Cameras

Older machine vision systems are difficult and costly to upgrade, especially those based on RS422 and low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) type interfaces. Incompatible with most modern frame grabbers, these legacy differential systems can now be brought up to speed using the BitFlow Neon-DIF differential frame grabber. Designed on the latest PCI Express (PCIe) platform, the Neon-DIF will upgrade an older differential system to acquire images up to 32 bits at 85 MHz from an existing LVDS camera, providing greater control, plus the convenience of running on Windows 10 or Linux OS.

“There are thousands of older differential systems today that handle basic processes at minimal cost, such as mail sorting, package handling, X-ray imaging, Focused Ion Beam, and Scanning Electron Microscopes. Unfortunately, users can’t upgrade the system’s PC to one featuring more powerful processing and a newer OS because the original PCI frame grabber is no longer available or isn’t compatible with a new PC,” explained Donal Waide, Director of Sales for BitFlow, Inc. “Our Neon-DIF frame grabber enables the user to save money by keeping the same LVDS line or area scan cameras, devices and application, yet upgrade their PC to use faster, more accurate image processing algorithms.”

Rather than PCI, the Neon-DIF is built on a half-size x4 PCIe bus interface that fits into the x16, x8, x4 and x1 slots found in today’s PCs. It installs fast and simple, bringing to an existing system a full set of new control signals and sync inputs for total camera and acquisition control.

Upgrades BitFlow Road Runner and R3-DIF
Along with older PCI frame grabbers from other manufacturers, the Neon-DIF provides an upgrade path for users of BitFlow Road Runner and R3-DIF PCI frame grabbers. It has the same connector pin-out and is compatible with their cables.

Ideal for Differential System OEMs
Besides legacy situations, the NEON-DIF is a cost-effective PCIe choice for OEMs developing new systems featuring cameras or other devices that output differential data. The Neon-DIF can acquire from just about any device and efficiently DMA its data into host memory at rates of 528 MB/S.

BitFlow SDK Support
The Neon-DIF is supported by the BitFlow SDK for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms. The SDK offers drivers, DLLs, and configuration utilities for people interested in using third party software. For those customers interested in developing their own applications, the SDK has header files, libraries, and example code for Windows XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7/10.