MIPI Groups Align Efforts, Advance Initiatives at Member Meeting #61

More than a hundred members from 35 MIPI Board and Contributor companies met last month at Member Meeting North America #61 to collaborate in working group sessions, learn more about the latest MIPI Alliance initiatives and participate in member events, including a Demo Day and a pilot test activity to further the development of a MIPI A-PHY® compliance program.

At sessions held 17-21 October, in Vancouver, British Columbia, the focus for MIPI working group participants was on advancing specification and resource development, continuing to align activities in priority areas such as IoT, security and automotive, and planning developer education and outreach.

Alliance members can follow working groups’ progress and view the latest MIPI Specification Roadmap in the Vancouver Post-F2F Highlights, which will be distributed in the next couple of weeks.

Launching the Week with MIPI Updates

At the traditional Opening Plenary kickoff, MIPI Alliance Chair Sanjiv Desai (left) welcomed new Contributor members and highlighted MIPI’s work in expanding technical liaisons, and industry and media recognition. He also thanked the many members who participated as speakers and authors for MIPI webinars, white papers, Bytes videos, MIPI DevCon, blog posts, industry and media presentations, and contributed articles. In addition, he invited working groups to submit technical project proposals for board evaluation.

Kevin Yee, Marketing Steering Group chair, followed with an update on marketing activities for new and upcoming specifications, as well as for the priority focus areas of automotive, IoT and security. Michele Scarlatella, MIPI IoT Consultant, introduced the work of the MIPI IoT Interest Group and its efforts to assess how MIPI’s existing specifications address current and future IoT market needs, and improve awareness with promotion targeting members and the developer community.

Next on the program, James Goel, chair of the Technical Steering Group, highlighted MIPI roadmap milestones such as the upcoming new security and audio specifications, updates to key camera and display specifications, and the pilot activity in the A-PHY compliance testing program. He also walked attendees through timelines and progress within each of the MIPI working groups.

Closing out the technical presentations was Niel Warren, chair of the Audio Working Group, who shared a historical look at the development of audio devices, as well as an overview of the group’s work and the distinctions between the MIPI SLIMbus®, SoundWire® and upcoming SoundWire I3S℠ specifications.

View the Opening Plenary presentations » (MIPI members only)

Celebrating New Specifications

Congratulations went to members of the UniPro Working Group for the adoption of MIPI UniPro® v2.0. The specification award was accepted by the group's chair, Ramesh Hanchinal (right) of Synopsys, Inc., and vice chair Daisuke Sonoda (center) of KIOXIA Corporation, pictured with Peter Lefkin, MIPI executive director, at the Opening Plenary.

Also recognized were the contributors to the MIPI I3C Transfer Command Response Interface (TCRI℠ ) v1.0 specification, and the chair of the MIPI Software Working Group, Matthew Schnoor (Intel Corporation).

Showcasing Member Solutions

At its second Demo Day of the year, attendees were invited to tour the following member demos featuring MIPI specifications:

• Arasan Chip Systems, Inc. demonstrated its MIPI C-PHY℠, DSI-2℠ and CSI-2® IP cores with Testmetrix MIPI HDK and compliance tester that uses Arasan's C-PHY℠ v2.0 & D-PHY℠ v2.5 ASIC.
• Introspect Technology showcased its latest MIPI D-PHY v3.5 and C-PHY v2.1 test and measurement tools for both receiver testing and transmitter testing. The demo showed MIPI CSI-2 and DSI-2 traffic generation and analysis, as well as physical layer testing.
• Keysight Technologies Inc. and its solution partner BitifEye Digital Test Solutions GmbH demonstrated MIPI A-PHY PMD Electrical Test solutions for receivers and transmitters, reflecting the draft A-PHY Conformance Test Suite.
• Mixel Inc. showcased a selection of its customers’ demos deploying its MIPI C-PHY and D-PHY IP, including the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and Microsoft Azure Kinect Developer Kit, NXP i.MX 7ULP applications processor, Synaptics VXR7200 for VR applications, and GEO GW5 camera video processor automotive demo.
• Prodigy Technovations Pvt. Ltd. demonstrated PGY-UFS 4.0-PA, MIPI M-PHY® v5.0, MIPI UniPro v2.0, JEDEC UFS 4.0 protocol analyzer, and MIPI I3C®, SPMI℠ and RFFE℠ exerciser and protocol analyzer
• Protocol Insight, LLC demonstrated the Falcon G550 protocol exerciser and analyzer, testing a JEDEC UFS 4.0/MIPI UniPro v2.0 (HS-G5) device
• Tektronix Inc. presented testing challenges and solutions on MIPI M-PHY Gear 5, C-PHY 2.0 and D-PHY 2.1 technologies.
• Teledyne LeCroy demonstrated the Eclipse M52 analyzer/exerciser, showing support for MIPI M-PHY Gear 5, MIPI UniPro v2.0 and JEDEC UFS 4.0. It also showcased the Envision X84 analyzer/exerciser capturing, analyzing and image playback with MIPI D-PHY, MIPI DSI-2 and MIPI CSI-2.

Pilot Test for A-PHY Compliance Program

Also during the Vancouver meeting, MIPI took an initial step in evaluating the process for compliance testing of MIPI A-PHY implementations. Four member companies participated in the pilot activity – two test equipment vendors, one test facilitator and another providing the device under test.

Outcomes of the pilot activity will help in planning next steps in the development of the compliance program.

Enjoying the Company of Colleagues

For attendees ready for an evening off, the mid-week social event featured a sunset cruise around the Vancouver bay. The well-deserved break gave members the opportunity to enjoy drinks, dinner and conversation with colleagues while taking in the panoramic views of the city skyline and the surrounding coastal mountain range.

MIPI's next member meeting will be held 6-10 March, in Lisbon, Portugal. Registration will open in January 2023.