Embedded Solutions

Case Study: Development of desktop bank check processor

Customer: IT major in USA
Technology: Embedded; Re-engineering

The Customer

The customer is a worldwide information technology services and solutions company. Primary vertical markets for the customer worldwide include financial services, transportation, communication and media, and commercial and public sectors, including the US federal government customers. With its document processing technology, the customer offers the broadest range of paper payment products - from compact-size branch units to high-speed transports that process up to 2,000 documents per minute.

The Challenge

The desktop document processor is the ideal solution for small community banks, savings and loans, and credit unions that have requirements for complete document processing – to capture, encode, endorse, image, and sort, remotely. Its unique and compact tabletop design provides the ability to read, endorse and encode items using MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) technology, as well as the option to capture images of those processed items, at up to 30 documents per minute.

Using the existing 30 documents per minute processor as the base, a new
model had to be developed with a higher throughput. The new model had to be fully compatible with the existing model. Applications needed to run unchanged on the new desktop processor model. The new model had to meet the same reliability and quality requirements of the existing machine. It had to meet the Safety/EMI Standards such as FCC Class B, VCCI Class 1 (CISPR 22 Class B), CE, EN60950 (Europe) and UL1950 3rd edition.

The Solution

Tata Infotech re-engineered 30 Documents-per-minute document processor to release a 60-documents-per-minute document processor. This was re-engineered to introduce a 110-documents-per-minute model. Tata Infotech conceptualised the two products. These were complete product redesign projects, which included prototype development and product release.

60 documents per minute bank check processor
Tata Infotech rewrote the firmware to improve the document processing speed by 30 per cent. The firmware controls the operation of the machine; it controls the motors and handles the document by monitoring the position of the document, polling the sensors mounted in the document track. The firmware also manages the communication with the host system; it interprets and executes commands issued by the host. The firmware sends responses and alarm messages to the host. The MICR or OCR code line data is read from the document and returned to host. A DSP-based image controller board captures document image and transfers CCITT or JPEG images of the scanned document over the SCSI bus.

Tata Infotech developed and qualified prototype machines and performed reliability testing on production samples to achieve the MTBF specifications. EMI/EMC Tests were performed to verify that product meets FCC Class B and VCCI Class 1 (CISPR 22 ClassB), CE EMI/EMC Standards.

110 documents per minute bank check processor

110 Document Processor

Tata Infotech designed a new automatic document handler that had a document feed speed of over 110 documents per minute. It designed the mechanical transport, the controller board, the firmware for the controller board and the enclosure for the new module. Moulds were also developed for the new plastic parts.

The MICR reader board was redesigned. A DSP-based reader board was designed and developed and customers proprietary character recognition algorithms were ported to the board. As a result of these changes, the MICR reader misread error rates were reduced by 50 per cent. The reader response time was also improved as the earlier board used an 8051 micro-controller.

The image controller board was redesigned to improve the image capture speed from 50 documents per minute to 70 documents per minute. The new board has an Altera ACEX EP1K100FC484 FPGA. The image capture and image processing tasks are shared between the FPGA and the Texas Instruments TMS320C31 DSP. The DSP and the FPGA access the same SDRAM memory. Two memory banks are used and the DSP and FPGA alternately access the memory banks.

Tests were performed on the production samples to verify compliance with TUV and UL requirements. The other EMI/EMC standards compliance tests, qualification tests and reliability tests were also performed to ensure quality.

Benefits to the customer

• Processing speed improved by 30 per cent.
• Misread error rates reduced by 50 per cent.
• Improved reader response time.
• Image capture speed improved from 50 documents per minute to 70 documents per minute

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