Introduction
The IPC CAMX (Computer Aided Manufacturing using XML) standards were developed to simplify the exchange of information among assets in an electronics manufacturing enterprise by accomplishing plug-and-play interoperability. They define a set of messages that can be exchanged among entities and a protocol for exchanging those messages.
The CAMX API (Application Programmers Interface) is a software library that be used to implement a CAMX interface. By making use of the API, developers can concentrate on the higher level requirements of their particular application rather than the specifics of CAMX communication, and the time to implement a CAMX interface should be significantly less than writing the necessary software from scratch.
The API is written so that it can be easily incorporated into machine control software and manufacturing applications. It takes the form of a Microsoft Dynamic Link Library (DLL) which provides developers with several callable functions. When these functions are called, the appropriate CAMX message is formed and sent to a CAMX compliant message broker via the IPC-2501 protocol. The technologies used to implement the IPC-2501 protocol such as HTTP, SOAP with Attachments and Multi-part MIME are transparent to the user.
Although the API provides a critical component for implementing a CAMX interface, modifications to a participant’s main executable is required to make use of the API. The executable will have to be modified so the appropriate API functions are called when a CAMX event occurs. Please see figure 1.
