The Camera Serial Interface (CSI) is a specification of the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance. It defines an interface between a camera and a host processor.
The latest active interface specifications are CSI-2 v4.1 (April 2024), CSI-3 v1.1 (March 2014) and CCS v1.1.1 (April 2023). [1] [2] [3]
CSI-1 was the original standard MIPI interface for cameras. It emerged as an architecture to define the interface between a camera and a host processor. Its successors were MIPI CSI-2 and MIPI CSI-3, two standards that are still evolving.
The MIPI CSI-2 v1.0 specification was released in 2005. It uses either D-PHY or C-PHY (Both standards are set by the MIPI Alliance) as a physical layer option. The protocol is divided into the following layers:
In April 2017, the CSI-2 v2.0 specification was released. CSI-2 v2.0 brought support for RAW-16 and RAW-20 color depth, increase virtual channels from 4 to 32, Latency Reduction and Transport Efficiency (LRTE), Differential Pulse-Code Modulation (DPCM) compression and scrambling to reduce Power Spectral Density. [4]
In September 2019, the CSI-2 v3.0 specification was released. CSI-2 v3.0 introduced Unified Serial Link (USL), Smart Region of Interest (SROI), End-of-Transmission Short Packet (EoTp) and support for RAW-24 color depth. [5] [6]
MIPI CSI-3 is a high-speed, bidirectional protocol primarily intended for image and video transmission between cameras and hosts within a multi-layered, peer-to-peer, UniPro-based M-PHY device network. It was originally released in 2012 and got re-released in version 1.1 in 2014. [7]
The Camera Command Set (CCS) v1.0 specification was released on November 30, 2017. CCS defines a standard set of functionalities for controlling image sensors using CSI-2. [8] [9]
For EMI reasons the system designer can select between two different clock rates (a and b) in each of the M-PHY speed levels. [10]
M-PHY speed | Clock rate | Bit rate |
---|---|---|
Gear 1 | G1a | 1.25 Gbit/s |
G1b | 1.49 Gbit/s | |
Gear 2 | G2a | 2.5 Gbit/s |
G2b | 2.9 Gbit/s | |
Gear 3 | G3a | 5 Gbit/s |
G3b | 5.8 Gbit/s |
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limited to 2.5 milliwatts, giving it a very short range of up to 10 metres (33 ft). It employs UHF radio waves in the ISM bands, from 2.402 GHz to 2.48 GHz. It is mainly used as an alternative to wired connections to exchange files between nearby portable devices and connect cell phones and music players with wireless headphones.
In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, the physical layer or layer 1 is the first and lowest layer: the layer most closely associated with the physical connection between devices. The physical layer provides an electrical, mechanical, and procedural interface to the transmission medium. The shapes and properties of the electrical connectors, the frequencies to transmit on, the line code to use and similar low-level parameters, are specified by the physical layer.
PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common motherboard interface for personal computers' graphics cards, sound cards, hard disk drive host adapters, SSDs, Wi-Fi and Ethernet hardware connections. PCIe has numerous improvements over the older standards, including higher maximum system bus throughput, lower I/O pin count and smaller physical footprint, better performance scaling for bus devices, a more detailed error detection and reporting mechanism, and native hot-swap functionality. More recent revisions of the PCIe standard provide hardware support for I/O virtualization.
The Camera Interface block or CAMIF is the hardware block that interfaces with different image sensor interfaces and provides a standard output that can be used for subsequent image processing.
The DigRF working group was formed as a MIPI Alliance (MIPI) working group in April 2007. The group is focused on developing specifications for wireless mobile RFIC to base-band IC (BBIC) interfaces in mobile devices.
Universal Flash Storage (UFS) is a flash storage specification for digital cameras, mobile phones and consumer electronic devices. It was designed to bring higher data transfer speed and increased reliability to flash memory storage, while reducing market confusion and removing the need for different adapters for different types of cards. The standard encompasses both packages permanently attached (embedded) within a device (eUFS), and removable UFS memory cards.
The Display Serial Interface (DSI) is a specification by the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance aimed at reducing the cost of display controllers in a mobile device. It is commonly targeted at LCD and similar display technologies. It defines a serial bus and a communication protocol between the host, the source of the image data, and the device which is the destination. The interface is closed source, which means that the specification of the interface is not open to the public. The maintenance of the interface is the responsibility of the MIPI Alliance. Only legal entities can be members. These members or the persons commissioned and approved by them have access to the specification in order to use it in their possible applications.
MIPI Alliance is a global business alliance that develops technical specifications for the mobile ecosystem, particularly smart phones but including mobile-influenced industries. MIPI was founded in 2003 by Arm, Intel, Nokia, Samsung, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
In mobile-telephone technology, the UniPro protocol stack follows the architecture of the classical OSI Reference Model. In UniPro, the OSI Physical Layer is split into two sublayers: Layer 1 and Layer 1.5 which abstracts from differences between alternative Layer 1 technologies. The actual physical layer is a separate specification as the various PHY options are reused in other MIPI Alliance specifications.
UniPro is a high-speed interface technology for interconnecting integrated circuits in mobile and mobile-influenced electronics. The various versions of the UniPro protocol are created within the MIPI Alliance, an organization that defines specifications targeting mobile and mobile-influenced applications.
The Serial Low-power Inter-chip Media Bus (SLIMbus) is a standard interface between baseband or application processors and peripheral components in mobile terminals. It was developed within the MIPI Alliance, founded by ARM, Nokia, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. The interface supports many digital audio components simultaneously, and carries multiple digital audio data streams at differing sample rates and bit widths.
The Wireless Gigabit Alliance was a trade association that developed and promoted the adoption of multi-gigabit per second speed wireless communications technology "WiGig" operating over the unlicensed 60 GHz frequency band. The alliance was subsumed by the Wi-Fi Alliance in March 2013.
WiGig, alternatively known as 60 GHz Wi-Fi, refers to a set of 60 GHz wireless network protocols. It includes the current IEEE 802.11ad standard and also the IEEE 802.11ay standard.
The Nikon 1 series is a discontinued camera line from Nikon, originally announced on 21 September 2011. The cameras utilized Nikon 1-mount lenses, and featured 1" CX format sensors.
A camera module is an image sensor integrated with a lens, control electronics, and an interface like CSI, Ethernet or plain raw low-voltage differential signaling.
MIPI Alliance Debug Architecture provides a standardized infrastructure for debugging deeply embedded systems in the mobile and mobile-influenced space. The MIPI Alliance MIPI Debug Working Group has released a portfolio of specifications; their objective is to provide standard debug protocols and standard interfaces from a system on a chip (SoC) to the debug tool. The whitepaper Architecture Overview for Debug summarizes all the efforts. In recent years, the group focused on specifying protocols that improve the visibility of the internal operations of deeply embedded systems, standardizing debug solutions via the functional interfaces of form factor devices, and specifying the use of I3C as debugging bus.
I3C, also known as SenseWire, is a specification to enable communication between computer chips by defining the electrical connection between the chips and signaling patterns to be used. Short for "Improved Inter Integrated Circuit", the standard defines the electrical connection between the chips to be a two wire, shared (multidrop), serial data bus, one wire (SCL
) being used as a clock to define the sampling times, the other wire (SDA
) being used as a data line whose voltage can be sampled. The standard defines a signalling protocol in which multiple chips can control communication and thereby act as the bus controller.
Cyphal is a lightweight protocol designed for reliable intra-vehicle communications using various communications transports, originally destined for CAN bus, but targeting various network types in subsequent revisions. OpenCyphal is an open-source project that aims to provide MIT-licensed implementations of the Cyphal protocol. The project was known as UAVCAN prior to rebranding in March 2022.
M-PHY is a high speed data communications physical layer protocol standard developed by the MIPI Alliance, PHY Working group, and targeted at the needs of mobile multimedia devices. The specification's details are proprietary to MIPI member organizations, but a substantial body of knowledge can be assembled from open sources. A number of industry standard settings bodies have incorporated M-PHY into their specifications including Mobile PCI Express, Universal Flash Storage, and as the physical layer for SuperSpeed InterChip USB.