MIPI CSI-2 v2.0: Emerging Applications in IoT, Drones and Automotive

By _Synopsys: VIP Experts Blog

November 9, 2017

MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI-2) is widely used as a camera interface in the mobile industry. MIPI Alliance is constantly working towards providing a solution to cater the increasing demand for higher-bandwidth and high-definition video like 1080p, 4K, and 8K. The MIPI Working Group released CSI-2 v2.0 to target emerging imaging and vision applications. It has extended the usages of CSI-2 to IoT, wearable devices, drones, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), and automotive systems.

CSI2 is a high-bandwidth interface between a camera and a host processor. Data is transmitted using differential signals using a clock lane. The physical layer, used with CSI-2, can be D-PHY or C-PHY based on the requirements. Performance using both physical layers are scalable, which can deliver data-bandwidth up to 8 Gbps per lane or up to 24 Gbps in a three lane C-PHY system. Below figure shows the topology which can be used by a CSI-2 camera sensor and an application processor with D-PHY or C-PHY as the physical layer.

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