The MIPI Alliance-wide team working on the development of MIPI Automotive SerDes SolutionsSM (MASS) was awarded a Silver Vision Award during the AutoSens 2020 Awards Ceremony live-streamed on 10 December.
The Vision Award is designed to recognize "an engineering visionary (or visionaries), inspiring progress throughout the vehicle perception ecosystem". Selected as one of two silver award winners from among eight other nominees in the category, the development team behind MASS were honored for their vision of a portfolio of specifications that together create a flexible, secure, end-to-end system for connecting the growing number of cameras and displays that enable ADAS, IVI and other surround-sensor applications.
This development team includes the MIPI Automotive Working Group, A-PHY Subgroup, Camera Working Group, Display Working Group and Security Investigation Group, with support from other groups across the organization, all working collaboratively to identify requirements, develop consistent approaches across protocols, coordinate scheduling, develop liaisons with other organizations, and conduct outreach with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers.
"We're pleased to accept this award on behalf of the hundreds, if not thousands, of MIPI member company engineers who have developed and continue to advance the specifications included within MASS," said Peter Lefkin, MIPI Alliance managing director. "We look forward to continuing to support the automotive industry with specifications and solutions that meet their evolving needs into the future."
The MIPI Vision for Connectivity Solutions
MASS is an end-to-end, full-stack of connectivity solutions with unprecedented functional safety and security built in at the protocol level. The use cases for MASS are wide-ranging, from back-up cameras to lane-keeping assist and sign-detection sensors; 360-degree camera, lidar and radar systems; and multiple high-resolution displays for instrumentation, control and entertainment.
The cornerstone of MASS is MIPI A-PHY℠ v1.0, released in September 2020, which is the first asymmetric industry-standard, long-reach serializer-deserializer (SerDes) solution. Its primary mission is the high-speed transfer of data between automotive cameras, sensors and displays and their associated electronic control units (ECUs).
With A-PHY at its foundation, the MASS stack further integrates upper-layer protocols such as MIPI CSI-2® and MIPI DSI-2℠ — and other approved protocols such as VESA's DisplayPort/Embedded DisplayPort — through a set of protocol adaptation layers (PALs) that map these protocols to A-PHY's A-Packet format. Additional functional safety and security capabilities are added using MIPI Camera Service Extensions (CSE℠) and Display Service Extensions (DSE℠) on top of CSI-2, DSI-2 and other native protocols.
Thanks to the efforts of the MASS development team, automotive OEMs and their suppliers will have new standardized end-to-end solutions for in-vehicle connectivity and the ability to more easily integrate future technologies that enhance safety, security and the in-car experience.
Christina Slape, MIPI Senior Communications Manager
