MIPI Alliance Forms Sensor Working Group

New Specification Will Enable Sensor Integration into Mobile Systems

Piscataway, NJ, November 6, 2013 - The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, announces the formation of a Sensor Working Group. The Sensor Working Group is open to Founders, Promoters and Contributor member companies. 

In 2012 MIPI Alliance, in collaboration with MEMS Industry Group (MEMS MIG), formed an open Sensor “Birds of a Feather” (BoF) group that successfully completed a project to review the state of the industry, survey opportunities for establishing a sensor interface, and set requirements to guide future proposals. Upon further investigation into the requirements related to integrating sensors into mobile systems, and a review of technical proposals against these requirements, the MIPI Board of Directors approved the creation of the Sensor Working Group.

“We have carefully considered this issue for some time and believed it was appropriate to form the Sensor Working Group to help define specifications for the mobile and mobile-influenced industries to easily integrate sensors into their devices,” said Joel Huloux, chairman of the board of MIPI Alliance. “The Sensor Working Group will help develop technology that the market truly wants and needs.”

Sensors are experiencing rapid growth in mobile devices – reaching a critical milestone of 10+ sensors and 20+ signals per device. To compound matters, the digital interface landscape is fragmented and current standard architectures do not scale to reach future demands. The working group will address these challenges facing the sensor and wireless markets including the digital interface landscape, rapidly expanding sensors per device, varied signals per device and non-scalable architectures. Ken Foust, Sensor Technologist at Intel, serves as the Sensor Working Group Chair, and Satwant Singh, Director of Strategic Planning with Lattice Semiconductor serves as the Vice Chair.

“The recent formation of the MIPI Sensor Working Group is another important step in the effort to bring standards to the sensor market. Standard sensor interfaces will enable system designers to more easily design in sensors and improve time to market. Many products will see an increase in the number of sensors.  A new interface standard which addresses improved efficiencies will benefit the industry. This will enable greater proliferation of sensors which will drive growth of MEMS across many markets,” stated Tony Massimini,chief of technology, Semico Research.

The MIPI Alliance Working Groups are at the heart of the organization. It is from these targeted groups that MIPI Specifications are developed. The organization currently has more than a dozen Working Groups which span the mobile device design.  For more information about the Sensor Working Group or MIPI Alliance, contact Mike Krell– director, Marketing and Membership.

About MIPI Alliance

MIPI® Alliance (MIPI) develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries. Founded in 2003, the organization has more than 260 member companies worldwide, has over 12 active working groups and has delivered 45+ specifications within the mobile ecosystem in the last decade. Members of the organization include handset manufacturers, device OEMs, software providers, semiconductor companies, application processor developers, IP tool providers, test and test equipment companies, as well as camera, tablet and laptop manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.mipi.org.