New Ethernet Adaptation Layer Adds Control Option to MIPI A-PHY Automotive Networks

By Sharmion Kerley, MIPI Director of Marketing and Membership

To satisfy the demand for both advanced safety features and better driver and passenger experiences, automakers are adding more displays, larger in size and with greater resolutions, to the digital cockpit. This trend has created a need for more in-vehicle wiring, which in turn adds cost, weight and complexity to new car designs.

This is one of the many challenges being addressed by the introduction of MIPI Automotive SerDes Solutions, or MASS for short, which offers a standardized framework for integrating cameras and displays with their associated electronic control units (ECUs) using the MIPI A-PHY^SM asymmetric SerDes physical layer as its foundation.

The most recent addition to the MASS framework is MIPI PAL^SM/ETH v1.0, an A-PHY protocol adaptation layer (PAL) released in March 2022 that lets OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers use a single A-PHY cable for both high-speed image data and low-speed Ethernet control data between automotive display modules and their ECUs.

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