MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation Reference Design

Connecting Multiple Dissimilar Image Sensors to Applications Processors with Minimal Latency

We're upgrading our website on August 31st! You may experience brief interruptions during the transition. Thank you for your patience.

Targeting Video Applications: New video applications in areas of artificial intelligence, drones, virtual reality and automobiles require input from multiple sensors. These sensors can include video cameras, but increasingly non-traditional sensors such as radar, lidar, and sonar are used in these applications as well.

Connect Multiple Image Sensor Data: Lattice CrossLink Family can interface to multiple MIPI CSI-2 compatible sensors and aggregate data to a single CSI-2 output stream. An ideal method for combining these dissimilar sensor sources utilizes MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channels.

Complete Reference Design: Using this N input to 1 output camera aggregator bridge reference design for the CrossLink Family, you can create a sensor aggregator design according to specific requirements. This reference design is free and is provided to demonstrate the use of Lattice’s popular CrossLink Family modular IPs including CSI-2/DSI D-PHY Receiver and CSI-2/DSI D-PHY Transmitter.

Features

  • Supports MIPI CSI-2 inputs and outputs at up to 6 Gbps: 1, 2 or 4 Data Lanes
  • Configurable to merge from 2 to 5 input CSI-2 sensor streams for CrossLink/CrossLink Plus and from 2 to 8 input CSI-2 sensor streams for CrossLink-NX. The Virtual Channel merge method assigns a unique virtual channel ID to each channel and data will be sent alternately between channels. Supports all CSI-2 data type: RAW, RGB, YUV
  • Maximum TX lane bandwidth is 10 Gbps using 4 lanes for CrossLink-NX
  • Compliant with MIPI D-PHY Specification v1.1
  • Compliant with CSI-2 Specification v1.1

Jump to

Application Examples

Application Examples of Multiple Image Sensor Aggregation

Block Diagram

MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation Block Diagram

CrossLink Modular IP Support Table

Documentation

Technical Resources
TITLE NUMBER VERSION DATE FORMAT SIZE
Select All
CrossLink-NX MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – Source Code
10/28/2025 ZIP 43.7 MB
CrossLink-NX MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – User Guide
FPGA-RD-02148 1.2 10/28/2025 PDF 2 MB
CrossLink MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – Source Code
3/17/2025 ZIP 16 MB
CrossLink MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – User Guide
FPGA-RD-02051 1.2 10/1/2019 PDF 2.5 MB

*By clicking on the "Notify Me of Changes" button, you agree to receive notifications on changes to the document(s) you selected.