Mystified About MIPI? Let Us MIPIfy You! – Part 3

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When it comes to selecting IP, the biggest concerns of design engineers are interoperability (will IP from one vendor work with IP from another), ease of integration, and the quality and reliability of the resulting system.

So who should you turn to for your MIPI IP? The answer is Arasan (www.arasan.com), which provides a total MIPI IP solution. We are deep domain experts who have been with the MIPI Alliance since its inception and who were the first to demonstrate working MIPI solutions. All of the MIPI board members are our customers, as are many of the 200+ contributing members.

Figure 3. Arasan offers a total MIPI IP solution.

As a simple example, consider the CSI-2 and DSI interfaces shown in Figure 1. Some IP vendors supply the CSI-2 transmitter, some supply the CSI-2 receiver and a few supply both; similarly for the DSI device and host controllers. But no single IP vendor has all of these cores… except for Arasan.

Actually, the real-world situation is even more complex, because some IP vendors supply only the digital portions of the IP, leaving their customers to source the D-PHY IP from another vendor. In fact, some IP vendors supply only the D-PHY and/or M-PHY, but have no deep understanding with regard to the digital portions of the interfaces. The problem is that, as was noted in the discussions associated with Figure 1, the digital IP blocks communicate with the D-PHY using the PPI (PHY Protocol Interface), but this interface is only optional and is subject to interpretation; suffice it to say that the end result may not be pretty.

Arasan can supply both the digital IP and the analog PHY for any existing MIPI standard, including CSI-2, DSI, SLIMbus, and HSI, along with the D-PHY and M-PHY. But there’s more to IP than RTL (for the digital portions) and GSDII (for the analog blocks). When we say that Arasan provides a total MIPI IP solution, we mean that we supply RTL (GDSII where applicable), ESL (Behavioral) and Transaction-Level Models (TLMs), Verification IP (VIP), software drivers and stacks, reference designs, and full hardware development kits (HDKs) and platforms.

And, as domain experts, in addition to the MIPI IP itself, we also offer consultation services with regard to alternative architectural scenarios such as the optimum number of lanes to use for a particular application. Furthermore, we provide unparalleled support direct from the engineers who develop our IP, which means you simply cannot ask our engineers something about the IP that they don’t know.

Another consideration is the quality of the verification IP (VIP) that accompanies the main IP cores. IP vendors typically create both the IP cores and the corresponding VIP. One potential problem is that the interface specifications aren’t always 100% comprehensive. The result is that it’s possible to introduce a non-standard interpretation of a corner case condition (possibly even a full-up error) into the IP and to then create VIP that tests for the incorrect implementation.In order to address this issue, although we create and ship our own VIP, we use VIP from other leading vendors to double-check our IP.

Summary

The MIPI suite of interfaces – coupled with the D-PHY and M-PHY physical layers – help designers of mobile and consumer products to reduce cost, complexity, power consumption, and EMI while increasing bandwidth and performance. MIPI addresses all of the subsystems found in mobile and consumer products, including graphics (cameras and displays), audio, radio, control, storage, and power management.

Arasan can supply a total MIPI IP solution for any existing MIPI standard, including digital IP, analog/PHY IP, verification IP (VIP), software stacks and drivers, hardware development kits, and… the list goes on. In addition to offering consultation services with regard to alternative architectural scenarios and customization, Arasan also provides unparalleled support direct from the engineers who develop our IP.

We are deep domain experts who have been with the MIPI Alliance since its inception and who were the first to demonstrate working MIPI solutions. All of the MIPI board members are our customers, as are many of the 200+ contributing members. The quality of our total MIPI IP solution, coupled with the fact that Arasan can supply a total MIPI IP solution for any existing MIPI standard, explains why Arasan is the MIPI IP vendor of choice. Call Arasan today and let us MIPIfy you!

Please visit www.mipi.org for further information on MIPI in general.

Please visit www.arasan.com for further information on Arasan’s total MIPI IP solutions.

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Prakash Kamath is the Vice President of Engineering at Arasan Chip Systems (www.arasan.com). Responsible for almost 200 engineers worldwide, Prakash has 29 years of extensive Design and Management experience. Prakash has successfully contributed to establishing Arasan’s “Total IP Solution” and has been instrumental in achieving Arasan’s leadership position with regard to Solid-State Storage and MIPI IP solutions. Prior to joining Arasan in 2002, Prakash has held several design and management positions in companies like AMD, National, and Chips & Technologies. Prakash holds a BS degree from the University of Madras, India, and an MS degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.

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