Chip mounters are the important equipment on Surface Mounting Technology (SMT) production line, and with continuous improvement of the requirement on the mounting speed and mounting accuracy of micro-electronic components, high-speed and high-precision chip mounters have become important goals pursued by many companies and manufacturers of SMT equipment. As there is great difference in the shape, size, shape and number of pins of the components to be mounted by chip mounters, higher technical requirements on the mounting components identification and visual system must be put forward. The traditional mounter vision system controls and handles the light source system and the image acquisition system by personal computer (PC). However, in the practical application, the visual system has disadvantages such as large volume and high cost, which will lead to the shortcomings of bulky volume of the production equipment, inconvenient assembling, expensive price, difficult upgrading, etc. In this paper, to overcome these deficiencies of mounter vision system, based on the advantages of embedded system such as small size, fast response, reliable operation and relatively low prices, etc., the application of Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) embedded system in SMT machine vision system is researched, and the whole system and the module design is done with the modular design thought, which is conductive to the development and later maintenance, updating, and upgrade of the system.