Building on the efforts of an Investigation Group formed in late 2004, the MIPI Board chartered the Low Speed Multipoint Link Working Group in mid-2005 to support audio, data and control applications requiring relatively low bandwidth. The efforts of many audio codec, application processor, baseband, and other companies produced the Serial Low-power Interchip Media Bus (SLIMbus®) Specification.

SLIMbus uses a two-wire, low voltage CMOS physical layer with a time division multiplexed link layer as a foundation for a set of messages and data channels to support audio, data and control applications. It allows system integrators lower overall system cost and more flexible system designs by consolidating several diverse functions, usually implemented on separate legacy interfaces, onto one dynamically reconfigurable multidrop bus offering peer-to-peer communication through a rich standardized message set. SLIMbus supports many high quality audio channels with different concurrent sample rates, using digital audio or system/RF clocks.

The working group currently investigates ways to optimize SLIMbus for power and speed, to lower the technical barriers to SLIMbus adoption. The group also actively undertakes the specification of additional Device Classes to support device interoperability.

History and Roadmap

Working Group Chair

Pierre Bossart, Intel

Working Group Vice-Chair

Hannes Hadl, austriamicrosystems

Member companies represented:

Analog Devices , austriamicrosystems, Broadcom, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ericsson, Freescale, Infineon, Intel, Knowles, LnK, Marvell, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Nokia, NXP, Qualcomm, RF Micro Devices, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, TI, Toshiba, Wolfson

Supporting organizations

IEEE-ISTO, UNH-IOL