Description
C-PHY is a MIPI physical layer (PHY) standard that provides high-throughput performance over bandwidth-limited channels to connect displays and cameras to an application processor. The standard provides a PHY for both MIPI Alliance’s Camera Serial Interface (CSI-2) and Display Interface (DSI-2) specifications. This enables engineers to scale their implementations to support a wide range of higher resolution image sensors and displays, while keeping power consumption low. However, because the C-PHY supports two application layers, engineers implementing a C-PHY interface must be able to see a device’s signal integrity and protocol data to ensure it conforms to the MIPI specification. With C-PHY, seven consecutive symbols are used to transmit 16 bits of data over a minimum of 3 wires (one lane), after encoding. Troubleshooting C-PHY-based applications can therefore, be time-consuming and error-prone because the engineer has to manually scroll through the waveform looking for regions of interest. Keysight’s N8848A MIPI C-PHY protocol decoder software extends the capability of Infiniium oscilloscopes, minimizing the time required for debugging and testing designs with CSI-2 and DSI-2 interfaces.
