MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation Reference Design

Connecting Multiple Dissimilar Image Sensors to Applications Processors with Minimal Latency

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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
2/14/2024 ZIP 382.1 MB
CrossLink MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – User Guide
FPGA-RD-02051 1.2 10/1/2019 PDF 2.5 MB
CrossLink MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – Source Code
3/17/2025 ZIP 16 MB
CrossLink-NX MIPI CSI-2 Virtual Channel Aggregation – User Guide
FPGA-RD-02148 1.1 12/22/2023 PDF 1.9 MB

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