New MIPI CSI-2 v4.0 Supports Always-On Mode, Compression for Tetra- and Nano-Cell CFAs, and RAW28 Color Depth

BusinessWire: The MIPI Alliance announces a major update to its MIPI Camera Serial Interface 2 (MIPI CSI-2) interface. CSI-2 v4.0 adds an always-on imaging that operates over as few as two wires to lower cost and complexity for ultra-low-power machine vision applications. CSI-2 v4.0 also adds multi-pixel compression for the latest generation of advanced image sensors and RAW28 color depth.

• Always-On Sentinel Conduit (AOSC) — Enables always-on machine vision systems in which combinations of ultra-low-power image sensors and video signal processors (VSPs) can continuously monitor their surrounding environments and then wake their higher-power, host CPUs only when significant events happen. (Typically, the VSP will be either a separate device or integrated with the host CPU within a larger SoC.) Example uses include laptop/tablet-based face monitoring, video surveillance, and vision-based vehicle safety applications. AOSC enables image frames to be economically streamed from an image sensor to a VSP over a low-power MIPI I3C bus in a highly efficient manner, with scaling options to add extra I3C lanes and bandwidth as defined by the I3C specification.
• Multi-Pixel Compression (MPC) — Provides optimized pixel compression for the latest generation of Tetra-Cell and Nona-Cell image sensors with multi-pixel color filter arrays (CFAs). The MPC feature helps alleviate the high bandwidth demands of these sensors by compressing both multi-pixel and standard Bayer CFA images more efficiently and with potentially higher quality than current methods. Reference code has also been made available to help integrators evaluate the algorithm and verify their implementations.
• RAW28 pixel encoding — Supports the next generation of high-dynamic-range automotive image sensors for applications such as those required for ADAS and other safety-critical applications.