Internet of Things (IoT)

Overview

The Internet of Things offers the vision of a hyper-connected world where physical objects and people seamlessly interconnect, exchanging data and making insightful decisions using artificial intelligence for the benefit of both individuals and society as a whole. Many IoT services already are widely adopted in the market today, with use cases covering virtually all sectors including automotive, consumer electronics, enterprise, healthcare, industrial, smart buildings, smart cities, smart homes and utilities.

The IoT market is expected to rapidly grow in all industry sectors over the next five years. According to recent analyst reports [1] [2] the number of IoT device connections across all IoT markets is forecast to exceed 38 billion devices by 2030, representing a two-fold growth in devices compared with 2023.

Technological advances in the electronics, telecom and software industries underpin the rollout of the IoT. Expanded wireless connectivity, smaller, faster and more power-efficient electronic components and more capable software are fueling a highly competitive IoT device market. It is essential that developers understand the technology building blocks available to them and make the best choices to ensure technical and commercial success.

How are MIPI specifications enabling IoT?

MIPI specifications define interfaces that connect application processors to sensors, cameras, displays, audio, storage, actuators and other components. With a portfolio of physical layer, protocol layer, software, and test and debug specifications that are already ubiquitous in smartphones, MIPI specifications can help IoT developers address many of the challenging power, size and cost constraints demanded by new and emerging IoT business cases.

In addition, the majority of these specifications are augmented with conformance test suites, readily available test tools, software, and debug interfaces, allowing IoT developers to focus their engineering resources on product differentiation and reduced time to market, rather than on the basic development of these core underlying technical interfaces.

More specifically, the key technical attributes and commercial benefits of the MIPI specifications match closely with the key design requirements of key IoT devices:

• MIPI physical layer interfaces (C-PHY℠ / D-PHY℠ / M-PHY℠ / A-PHY®) are a family of four physical-layer interfaces delivering high-bandwidth, low-power and low-EMI operation. They are highly cost-optimized and are applicable for use within IoT devices to connect embedded cameras and displays, and enable use of Universal Flash Storage.
• MIPI I3C® is the natural successor to I2C and provides a simple, cost-effective, low-latency, two-wire interface that can be used to connect sensors, actuators, controls and simple UI components to an application processor. It is highly power-efficient and can support ultra-low-power IoT applications.
• MIPI CSI-2®, and its associated camera control interface, is a low-complexity, high-speed protocol for image data transmission between high-bandwidth image sensors and application processors. It has achieved widespread market adoption within high-performance camera, sonar, lidar and other sensors, and is the de facto choice for embedded cameras and machine vision applications.
• MIPI DSI-2℠, and its associated display command set, is a widely adopted, simple, high-speed, low-power protocol for connecting embedded displays to application processors. It is widely used across different IoT device types and is the clear choice for connecting high-resolution embedded displays.
• MIPI SoundWire® is a comprehensive audio interface with scalable architecture that supports advanced amplifiers and microphones; optimizes speaker protection, microphone power and performance; enables noise cancellation; and supports always-listening audio inputs.
• MIPI debug and trace interfaces are used to debug application processors, device controllers, power management devices and other components. The specifications are publicly available and have been widely implemented by the test-tool vendor community.
• MIPI software resources streamline the integration of MIPI protocols. MIPI DisCo specifications, which are already integrated into many freely available Linux kernels, include a base architectural framework and a portfolio of interface-specific specifications that unify the software discovery and configuration of many MIPI protocols. MIPI I3C HCI℠ provides an open source implementation of a I3C master controller for use in SoC designs.

By mapping the requirements of some example IoT device types, spread across different IoT market sectors, it quickly becomes apparent how broadly applicable current MIPI specifications are to many different types of IoT devices. The table below shows a mapping between MIPI’s current physical layer, protocol layer, debug and software specifications for a set of hypothetical IoT devices.

In addition to the technical attributes of MIPI specifications, they also serve to support the commercial aims of the IoT market as they drive economies of scale, have low cost of ownership, reduce design complexity, aid software development, are 5G ready and enable security.

Get Involved: MIPI IoT Embedded Systems Interest Group

Building upon previous MIPI IoT initiatives, the MIPI IoT Embedded Systems Interest Group (IoT-ES IG) was formed in 2024 to provide a forum for all MIPI members (Contributors and Adoptors) to engage in activities that promote the development and use of MIPI specifications for IoT use cases, with particular interest in edge AI, software integration, embedded security, evolution of sensor interfaces, and debug for distributed IoT systems.

If you are interested in participating in MIPI's IoT initiatives, please visit the member website (Causeway) to join the working group, upload your activity proposals in the dedicated member area or contact the iot-esig-chair@mipi.org for more information.