i.MX 8QuadMax SoM for Digital X-Ray Machines

The team decided to use the i.MX 8QM SMARC System on Module for its scalability and performance and easily integrates with the FPGAs used in their design. The development board and reference design provided by iWave helped the team to jumpstart the project while reducing the design risk.

Flat-panel displays are composed of multiple sensors that work together to create a high-resolution image. Hence, system designers had to integrate extremely sensitive sensors with high-speed digital processing capabilities into a low-profile enclosure. The first step in image acquisition is to capture raw data from sensors. Readout rates up to 10Gbps were required depending on the sensor resolution and desired frame rate.

The development board supports dual PCIe interfaces for transferring raw data from the sensors to the FPGAs. The FPGAs accept the raw data, decode the incoming streams, aggregate them, and perform data serialization. Finally, all of the pixels in the image are reordered, and the FPGAs perform additional image processing operations to improve the image’s quality.
The system uses AI tools to automate some of the technologists’ manual tasks and assists reading radiologists with new decision support resources. Furthermore, they help prioritize critical cases to detect subtle or complex patterns within X-Ray images, improving efficiency, quality, and clinical accuracy.

System designers can tailor the i.MX 8QuadMax development board to suit medical device manufacturer requirements and satisfy system integration parameters. The module offers extensive high-speed interfaces, such as Gigabit Ethernet, PCIe Gen3, USB3.0, SATA3.0, and multiple GPIO interfaces, enabling broad system connectivity and simplifying industrial qualification.