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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Camera Serial Interface</span></span>
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<p>The <b>Camera Serial Interface</b> (CSI) is a specification of the <a href="Mobile_Industry_Processor_Interface" class="mw-redirect" title="Mobile Industry Processor Interface">Mobile Industry Processor Interface</a> (MIPI) Alliance. It defines an interface between a <a href="Camera" title="Camera">camera</a> and a host processor.
</p><p>The latest active interface specifications are CSI-2 v4.1 (April 2024), CSI-3 v1.1 (March 2014), and CCS v1.1.1 (April 2023).
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Standards">Standards</h2></div>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="CSI-1">CSI-1</h3></div>
<p>CSI-1 was the original standard MIPI interface for cameras. It emerged as an architecture to define the interface between a camera and a host processor. Its successors were MIPI CSI-2 and MIPI CSI-3, two standards that are still evolving.
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="CSI-2">CSI-2</h3></div>
<p>The MIPI CSI-2 v1.0 specification was released in 2005. It uses either <a href="UniPro_protocol_stack#D-PHY" title="UniPro protocol stack">D-PHY</a> or C-PHY (Both standards are set by the MIPI Alliance) as a physical layer option. The protocol is divided into the following layers: physical, lane merger, low-level protocol, pixel-to-byte conversion, and application.
</p><p>In April 2017, the CSI-2 v2.0 specification was released. CSI-2 v2.0 brought support for RAW-16 and RAW-20 color depth, increase virtual channels from 4 to 32, Latency Reduction and Transport Efficiency (LRTE), <a href="Differential_pulse-code_modulation" title="Differential pulse-code modulation">Differential Pulse-Code Modulation (DPCM)</a> compression and scrambling to reduce <a href="Power_spectral_density" class="mw-redirect" title="Power spectral density">Power Spectral Density</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>In September 2019, the CSI-2 v3.0 specification was released. CSI-2 v3.0 introduced Unified Serial Link (USL), Smart Region of Interest (SROI), End-of-Transmission Short Packet (EoTp) and support for RAW-24 color depth.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The most recent version, CSI-2 v4.1, was released in April 2024.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="CSI-3">CSI-3</h3></div>
<p>MIPI CSI-3 is a high-speed, bidirectional protocol primarily intended for image and video transmission between cameras and hosts within a multi-layered, peer-to-peer, <a href="UniPro" title="UniPro">UniPro</a>-based <a href="M-PHY" title="M-PHY">M-PHY</a> device network. It was originally released in 2012 and got re-released in version 1.1 in March 2014.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="CCS">CCS</h3></div>
<p>The Camera Command Set (CCS) v1.0 specification was released on November 30, 2017. CCS defines a standard set of functionalities for controlling image sensors using CSI-2.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The most recent version, CCS v1.1.1, was released in April 2023.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Technology_and_speeds">Technology and speeds</h2></div>
<p>For <a href="Electromagnetic_interference" title="Electromagnetic interference">electromagnetic interference</a> reasons the system designer can select between two different clock rates (a and b) in each of the M-PHY speed levels.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<table class="wikitable">
<tbody><tr>
<th>M-PHY speed</th>
<th>Clock rate</th>
<th>Bit rate
</th></tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="2">Gear 1</td>
<td>G1a</td>
<td>1.25 Gbit/s
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>G1b</td>
<td>1.49 Gbit/s
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="2">Gear 2</td>
<td>G2a</td>
<td>2.5 Gbit/s
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>G2b</td>
<td>2.9 Gbit/s
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="2">Gear 3</td>
<td>G3a</td>
<td>5 Gbit/s
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>G3b</td>
<td>5.8 Gbit/s
</td></tr></tbody></table>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2></div>
<ul><li><a href="Display_Serial_Interface" title="Display Serial Interface">Display Serial Interface</a></li>
<li><a href="Camera_Link" title="Camera Link">Camera Link</a></li>
<li><a href="USB_video_device_class" title="USB video device class">USB video device class</a></li></ul>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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</ol></div></div>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div>
<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.mipi.org/current-specifications">MIPI Specifications</a></li></ul>
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