'Industry's first' MIPI I3C IP for sensor connectivity

The IP is compliant with the MIPI Camera Control Interface (CCI), I2C and MIPI I3C specifications, allowing designers to scale and future-proof their sensor interface designs. In addition, the controller IP supports master and slave operating modes, enabling systems with several ICs to efficiently connect to all sensors on a single I3C bus. With the DesignWare MIPI I3C Controller IP, designers can integrate more sensors into a system while simplifying board design and reducing overall cost and power.

"MEMS and sensors are being adopted at an increasing pace. Semico Research projects from 2015 to 2020 the CAGR is 20.4% for MEMS and sensors across all markets. Some applications have as many as 10 or more MEMS and sensors and growing. In addition, there are applications with multiple sensor hub controllers and apps processors," said Tony Massimini, chief of technology, Semico Research and Consulting Group. "Synopsys has been developing its I3C IP since the early stages of I3C development. Semico foresees MIPI I3C adoption for several applications beyond smartphones such as IoT, wearables, automotive, and more."

The DesignWare MIPI I3C Controller IP supports all data rates up to 26.7Mbps, dynamic address allocation, multi-master operations and 32-bit ARM AMBA Advanced Peripheral Bus (APB) slave interface. The standards-based APB interface connects the IP to the rest of the SoC while the bus is connected to the register and Direct Memory Access (DMA) interfaces, enabling easy IP integration. The combination of the DesignWare MIPI I3C Controller IP with Synopsys' silicon-proven DesignWare MIPI CSI-2 Controller, D-PHY, verification IP and IP Prototyping Kits enables designers to have a complete image sensor interface solution.

"As an active member of the MIPI Alliance for more than 10 years, Synopsys continues to drive the development of key protocols such as I3C to help enable the ecosystem," said Joel Huloux, chairman of the board, MIPI Alliance. "Synopsys offers designers a high-performance interface IP solution that they can leverage to future proof their legacy I2C devices and utilise the I3C specification to quickly develop their unique products in mobile applications and beyond."

"Designers are adding more sensors into systems to deliver sophisticated functionalities such as touch, motion, proximity and others," said John Koeter, Vice President of marketing for IP and prototyping, Synopsys. "The DesignWare MIPI I3C Controller IP provides a scalable interface solution that enables designers to efficiently integrate required sensor connectivity into their systems, while meeting challenging performance, power and cost constraints of their target application."