MIPI D-PHY℠

General Info

• Overview

  MIPI D-PHY℠ connects megapixel cameras and high-resolution displays to an application processor. It is a clock-forwarded synchronous link that provides high noise immunity and high jitter tolerance. MIPI D-PHY also offers low-latency transitions between high-speed and low-power modes.

  MIPI D-PHY is a popular physical layer (PHY) for cameras and displays in smartphones because of its flexibility, high speed, power efficiency and low cost. For these reasons, it has also been applied to many other use cases, such as drones, very large tablets, surveillance cameras and industrial robots. D-PHY is also used heavily in automotive applications, including camera-sensing systems, collision-avoidance radars, in-car infotainment and dashboard displays with the support of proprietary bridging solutions.

  MIPI D-PHY is developed by the MIPI D-PHY Working Group. The specification is available only to MIPI Alliance members. For information about joining MIPI Alliance, see Join MIPI.

• Capabilities

  Operation and available data rates for a link are asymmetrical due to camera and display application needs. The asymmetrical design of D-PHY significantly reduces the complexity of the link and makes it well-suited for display and camera use cases with one major data transmission direction, for example. Bi-directional and half-duplex operation are optional.

  MIPI D-PHY includes a fast bus turnaround (BTA), as well as an alternate low power (ALP) feature, which enables a link operation using only D-PHY’s high-speed signaling levels. These features enable applications of not only mobile devices, but also IoT devices operating over several meters at high speed. Also, these features enable an optional in-band control mechanism supported by the MIPI Camera Serial Interface 2 (MIPI CSI-2^®) v3.0 Unified Serial Link (USL).

• Latest Releases (v3.0 and v3.5)

  Version 3.0 doubles the data rate of D-PHY’s standard channel to 9 Gigabits per second (Gbps) and 11 Gbps for its short channel, enabling support for the latest ultra-high-definition displays and beyond. In tandem with the boost in data rate, D-PHY v3.0 introduces a Continuous-Time Linear Equalizer (CTLE) on the receiver side of a connection to maintain the interface’s superior power efficiency. D-PHY v3.0 is fully compatible with previous versions of the MIPI specification.

  The latest version of the specification, D-PHY v3.5, extends D-PHY v3.0 by introducing an optional embedded clock mode. As part of the embedded clock enhancements, a 128-132b data encoding scheme and a clock data recovery block have also been added. D-PHY v3.5 is fully backward compatible with the D-PHY v3.0 specification. Version 3.5 also replaces the words master and slave (which MIPI has deprecated as technical terms), with primary and secondary, respectively, and also makes the existing forwarded clock mode optional.