The MIPI Alliance has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with IEEE to facilitate adoption of the MIPI A-PHY specification as an IEEE standard.
MIPI Alliance is an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, and IEEE is one of the largest technical professional organizations dedicated to advancing technology.
Automotive OEMs and their suppliers require end-to-end, high-performance connectivity solutions, and MIPI A-PHY v1.0 is an industry-standard, long-reach serializer-deserializer (SerDes) physical layer interface for automotive applications such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), autonomous driving systems (ADS) and other surround-sensor applications, including cameras and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) displays. A-PHY v1.0 claims to deliver with high reliability, resiliency and performance for high-speed data transfer within vehicles.
The collaboration intends to bring the MIPI A-PHY SerDes specification to a broader ecosystem beyond MIPI’s membership, which in turn will foster greater interoperability, choice and economies of scale for the global automotive industry.
Highlights of the standard according to MIPI:
A-PHY serves as he foundation of an end-to-end system designed to simplify the integration of cameras, sensors and displays across a vehicle while adding functional safety and security to the MIPI CSI-2 and MIPI DSI-2 protocols used in billions of mobile devices and widely implemented in automotive today.
As the only long-reach PHY with native support for CSI-2 and DSI-2, as well as third-party protocols such as VESA DisplayPort and Embedded DisplayPort, A-PHY offers seamless integration by eliminating the need for bridge ICs.
A-PHY provides an asymmetric data link in a point-to-point topology, delivering high-speed unidirectional data, embedded bidirectional control data and optional power over a single cable, reducing wiring, cost and weight.
MIPI A-PHY v1.0 offers an ultra-low packet error rate (PER) of 10-19 for performance over the vehicle lifetime, immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI) effects in demanding automotive conditions and data rate as high as 16 Gbps, with a roadmap to 48 Gbps and beyond.
The MIPI A-PHY v1.0 specification became available to MIPI members in September 2020 and now will go through the IEEE standards-adoption process. The MOU also paves the way for the adoption of other MIPI specifications, such as A-PHY protocol adaptation layers for MIPI CSI-2 and DSI-2, as IEEE standards in the future.
Under the MOU, the MIPI Alliance joins the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) as a corporate member and will participate in the IEEE Industry Affiliate Network (IAN). Through IAN, the MIPI Alliance leverages visibility for its specifications across and beyond more than 419,000 IEEE members in over 160 countries and an unmatched range of technology spaces.
