Frequently Asked Questions

MIPI Alliance publishes its specifications according to the MIPI Bylaws, which limits distribution to member companies only. Any company can join to become a member.

No, MIPI Alliance focuses on improving interconnectivity between components. Companies that use MIPI Alliance specifications are free to develop differentiated products, including proprietary internal architectures and bus structures.

Yes, MIPI Alliance periodically updates its specifications with corrections and improvements. As it releases updates, it recommends that members should implement the newer specification.

MIPI Alliance develops interfaces that define the signaling characteristics, protocols and other techniques used to interconnect components in a device and enable the components to interoperate and communicate with one another. A device can use a few or multiple interfaces. In a mobile device such as a smartphone, a range of interfaces is needed to connect a couple dozen components, from the antenna, modem and application processor to the microphone, speaker, battery, camera, sensors and others. Devices designed for mobile-influenced applications, such as wearables or automobiles, will use varying numbers and types of interfaces depending on the application and components used.

If the term “deprecate” is intended to mean “change from authorized status to nonauthorized and remove from active distribution,” no, MIPI Alliance does not deprecate specifications.

However, if the term “deprecate” is intended to mean making recommendations concerning documents to “indicate that they should be avoided, typically because they have been superseded,” yes, MIPI Alliance does sometimes make those recommendations. However, such recommendations do not affect Member rights and responsibilities under the Membership agreement. [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprecation.]

A mobile device is a mobile or handheld device that can be carried by hand, is battery powered, and provides voice and data connectivity on internationally standardized mobile communications networks. A typical mobile device is a smartphone, tablet, laptop or laptop-tablet hybrid. Mobile devices can be sold in any market.

A mobile-influenced device is a previously unconnected device or a new type of device that incorporates standard mobile communications connectivity to provide voice and/or data services and solutions for mobile-influenced industries.

Mobile-influenced industries are those that leverage mobile technologies and the mobile ecosystem to evolve existing products or create new product designs. Two important mobile-influenced industries are the automotive sector and the overall Internet of Things.

MIPI Alliance specifications serve six fundamental application areas:

• Physical layer applications: A family of high-speed physical layers to serve essential interconnection needs in a device
• Multimedia applications: Protocols for cameras and imaging, displays, touch, and audio
• Chip-to-chip/IPC applications: Protocol layers for chip-to-chip or interprocessor communications (IPC)
• Control and data applications:  Protocol layers to manage lower-speed components
• Debug and trace applications:  Tools for debugging embedded systems throughout the development life cycle
• Software integration applications: Tools that streamline software integration of components in mobile-connected devices

MIPI Alliance has a portfolio of many different specifications that have been released and adopted in the market. We stopped counting after 50 or so, but a list of all current specifications is published on the MIPI website. The specifications are available as individual interfaces, enabling companies to adopt whichever ones they prefer or need to differentiate their designs or support particular technology requirements or architectures.

MIPI Alliance specifications provide common approaches for interfacing components to allow interoperability of components supplied by different vendors. The specifications alleviate the need for proprietary solutions, which saves development time and costs to help companies shorten time-to-market with compelling, feature-rich products for consumers.

MIPI Alliance specifications are also designed to help vendors meet the stringent operating conditions required in mobile devices: high-bandwidth performance to enable feature-rich, data intensive applications; low power to preserve battery life; and low electromagnetic interference (EMI) to minimize interference between radios and other subsystems in a device.

Any company can join MIPI Alliance. The organization has a diverse membership base and enables participation from both large and small companies. The members represent companies across the mobile and mobile-influenced ecosystems. Members include semiconductor and chip suppliers, component vendors, device manufacturers, IP providers, software vendors, and firms that offer test equipment and testing services.

No – subject to a narrow exception. Most MIPI specifications are confidential to MIPI members, copyright and trademark licenses granted by MIPI Alliance are available only to members, and the patent license obligations described in the MIPI Membership Agreement are made by and among MIPI members. Accordingly, once a party is no longer a member, that party’s rights to access and use the specifications are significantly limited. Under the MIPI IPR structure, however, certain licenses automatically become effective during membership and survive withdrawal from MIPI membership. These terms permit the disposition of those particular products and product components that a former member had manufactured at the time of termination (for example, a semiconductor vendor may deplete its inventory). Any post-termination rights granted by MIPI Alliance to the terminated member are limited to this narrow scope. 

The fee structure scales with levels of membership. Fees range from $40,000 for founders and board members to $4,000 for small companies that join at the adopter level. Membership fees are detailed on the Membership Dues & Structure page.

Different companies place different value on membership depending on their markets, business strategies, resources, etc. For example, some companies have the desire and resources to attend meetings, participate in working groups and help define specifications. Others may simply want access to the specifications once they are published.

The MIPI Alliance membership model provides a range of participation levels to serve any individual company’s needs. The tiered model also scales membership fees in accordance with the level of membership. The tiered model helps ensure that MIPI Alliance has a diverse membership base that represents both large and small companies.

Yes. The MIPI IPR structure facilitates licensing only by and among MIPI members. Licensing obligations attach only to what the MIPI Membership Agreement calls “Compliant Portions,” defined as “those specific portions of products (hardware, software or combinations thereof) that … both implement and are compliant with the relevant portions of the MIPI Specification. ...” The party that implements an IP block in a product is generally the party that makes and sells the “Compliant Portion.” Accordingly, to be a beneficiary of the licensing regime set out in the MIPI Membership Agreement, a party that implements an IP block embodying a MIPI specification must be a MIPI member. Further, most MIPI specifications are confidential. If your company is not a MIPI member, the IP provider, as a MIPI member subject to the confidentiality provisions of Membership Agreement terms, will not be authorized to disclose the MIPI specification to you (see question below).

Yes. Creating an IP block that implements a MIPI specification requires access to the specification document. Most MIPI specifications are confidential and available only to MIPI members. A non-member company that accessed and used a confidential MIPI specification to develop an IP block would be misappropriating a MIPI trade secret and infringing various MIPI intellectual property rights.

Yes. Most MIPI specifications are confidential and may only be disclosed as authorized by MIPI Alliance. MIPI Alliance has authorized the disclosure of confidential MIPI specifications to non-members only in limited circumstances, such as to contractors assisting MIPI members with the development of “Compliant Portions,” or as minimally necessary for the purposes of creating support documentation for a Compliant Portion. Disclosure of specifications and material derived from specifications to non-members is generally prohibited. Further, as described in the first question in this section, the party that implements an IP block in a product is likely to be the party that creates a Compliant Portion (i.e., not the IP block vendor), and this party must be a member in order to be a beneficiary of the licensing regime set out in the MIPI Membership Agreement.

No. A non-member who is creating and licensing an IP block that implements a MIPI specification is making an unauthorized use of MIPI intellectual property. The non-member will have accessed the specification via improper means and is using it without MIPI Alliance’s consent. A company that receives misappropriated or infringing materials from a non-member will be complicit in (and potentially liable for) this wrongful behavior, even if they could obtain authorized access to similar materials via their membership in MIPI Alliance. Note that former members of MIPI Alliance are equally subject to this limitation. If a company developed the IP block while it was a member and then terminated its membership, subsequent distribution of the IP block would violate MIPI Alliance confidentiality and copyright terms.

MIPI Alliance developed and maintains a policy to state clearly, to its members, its relationship to product testing and evaluation. The policy strongly encourages members to participate in test activities to promote product quality, speed the overall development process and improve manufacturability of products that use MIPI Alliance specifications. 

Most MIPI specifications are confidential and may only be disclosed as authorized by MIPI Alliance. In specific instances, MIPI Alliance may authorize the disclosure of confidential MIPI specifications to non-members. The Test Policy encourages all other MIPI Alliance working groups to develop Conformance Test Suite (CTS) documents for their specifications to help the industry consolidate around a common set of test methods.

The Test Policy approved in 2016 also raises awareness of the importance of two principles of specification development: 1) promoting development of features that support "design for testability" to make it easier to develop and test an implementation; and 2) promoting "design for manufacturability" so products built with MIPI Alliance specifications can be more easily manufactured and potential problems can be identified prior to production and fixed during development. 

MIPI Alliance does not judge whether products comply with or conform to its specifications. Furthermore, MIPI Alliance does not mandate testing of products that use its specifications, nor does it endorse/approve test equipment, test tools, labs or services, or develop equipment-specific documents.

MIPI strongly advocates that members hold conformance testing events and/or interoperability testing events (a.k.a. "plugfests") to facilitate convenient product testing or to determine how well their products work together. 

The Test Policy approved in 2016 allows and encourages MIPI Alliance working groups to organize these test activities. All members, particularly independent test labs and test services companies, are also encouraged to organize events. 

Once a specification is released, MIPI Alliance recommends that test event organizers invite participation from all levels of membership who have implemented a MIPI specification in their products. Prior to a MIPI specification’s release, participation requires access to working group materials and typically consists of active working group members.

We encourage test service providers to join MIPI Alliance and participate in the specification working groups. Participation helps companies stay informed about testing needs and upcoming events.