USB camera modules can be mainly divided into the following categories:
CCD Camera Module: CCD (Charge Coupled Device) is a semiconductor imaging device that converts light signals into electrical signals using the photoelectric effect. CCD has high imaging quality and has the advantages of high sensitivity, low noise and high dynamic range. It is often used in professional fields with extremely high requirements for imaging quality, such as high-end astronomical observation equipment, professional broadcast-level cameras, etc. However, the manufacturing process of CCD is complex, the cost is high, and the power consumption is relatively large.
CMOS Camera Module: A CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) image sensor has each pixel with its own photodiode, amplifier, and analog-to-digital converter that amplifies and converts the signal within the pixel. The biggest advantages of CMOS are high integration, small size, low cost, fast data transmission speed, low power consumption, and suitability for portable electronic devices. With the advancement of technology, the imaging quality of CMOS sensors has been significantly improved and is widely used in consumer electronics such as smartphones, tablets, and laptop cameras.
USB interface type: There are two types of USB interfaces: USB2.0 and USB3.0. USB2.0 has a small bandwidth and can only transmit full-time uncompressed video with VGA (640*480) quality. It is difficult to transmit high-resolution and high-frame-rate video. The USB 3.0 interface can better support high-resolution and high-frame-rate video transmission.
Architecture Type: USB camera solutions are mainly divided into FPGA architecture, ARM architecture and MCU architecture. The FPGA architecture is flexible and suitable for machine vision; the ARM architecture is suitable for high-end products, with a high-performance CPU and professional image processing capabilities; the MCU architecture is lower in cost and suitable for simple application scenarios.
