Low-cost FPGA-based MIPI interfaces for video displays, cameras

Xilinx Inc., together with Northwest Logic and Xylon, Xilinx Premier Alliance Members, has revealed the availability of a low cost Xilinx FPGA-based MIPI interface IP geared for cost sensitive video displays and cameras.

The MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) and Camera Serial Interface 2 (CSI-2) have become the industry connectivity standards for low cost video displays and cameras across a wide variety of embedded systems. Xilinx FPGAs can now be used to connect image sensors and ASSPs that support the CSI-2 and DSI standards for the development of high bandwidth applications supporting 4K2K and beyond. The release of the support for MIPI furthers Xilinx's Smarter Vision commitment by now enabling advanced real-time analytics and immersive display applications.

Northwest Logic provides a full range of DSI (host and peripheral) and CSI-2 (Tx & Rx) controller cores. These cores fully support 1-4 lane and 8 lane (dual 4 lane) MIPI operation. The cores are delivered fully integrated with the PHY logic to implement Xilinx's low cost MIPI interface technique. "The Xilinx low cost MIPI Interface approach will enable a whole new range of FPGA-based MIPI products. The Northwest Logic MIPI cores that support this technique are fully hardware validated and released," said Brian Daellenbach, president at Northwest Logic.

Xylon provides a range of video processing IP Cores. Xylon has taken a Xilinx FPGA mezzanine card (FMC), which implements the low cost MIPI Interface approach, Northwest Logic's CSI-2 and DSI cores and its own cores running on an off-the-shelf Zynq All Programmable SoC evaluation board (ZC702 & ZC706) to create a comprehensive demonstration system. The demonstration system takes a live video stream from an OmniVision CMOS sensor (OV16820), processes it in a Xilinx FPGA and then streams it to a MIPI-compatible display. "This demo system shows that low cost, FPGA-based MIPI systems can be developed quickly and reliably using this interface approach and associated logiBRICKS," said Davor Kovacec, CEO of Xylon.

The Xilinx MIPI D-PHY Solutions Application Note (XAPP894) can be found at http://www.xilinx.com/support/index.htm.