MIPI A-PHY Specification Levels Up In-Vehicle Connectivity

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In a Q&A, the MIPI A-PHY working group chairs weighs in on the future of A-PHY and MASS.

www.eetimes.eu/, Mar. 27, 2023 – 

Innovation in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), in-vehicle infotainment and autonomous driving has made standardized interfaces more important than ever, as cameras, sensors and displays have grown in number, complexity, bandwidth and interoperability requirements. The MIPI Alliance has introduced MIPI A-PHY, the industry's first standardized asymmetric long-reach SerDes specification, as well as the end-to-end MIPI Automotive SerDes Solutions (MASS) connectivity framework to simplify the integration of cameras, sensors and displays with built-in functional safety, security and data protection.

In a Q&A, the MIPI A-PHY working group chairs weighed in on the future of A-PHY and MASS. Edo Cohen of Valens and Raj Kumar Nagpal of Synopsys are co-chairs of the working group, and Ariel Lasry of Qualcomm serves as vice chair.

EE Times Europe: How will connected cars benefit from the MIPI A-PHY specification? What are the security risks/threats, and what will the MIPI A-PHY specification enable in terms of functional safety and security?

Raj Kumar Nagpal: The benefit of the standardized asymmetric approach that MIPI delivers for the modern vehicle is multifaceted. In point-to-point, daisy-chain or more advanced topologies, A-PHY delivers lightning-fast unidirectional data, embedded bidirectional control data and optional power delivery–all over a single cable. This slashes overhead in terms of wiring, cost and weight requirements and positions designers to optimize implementations for their use cases. It also has exceptional reliability (with a packet error rate of just 10–19 for unprecedented reliability over the vehicle lifetime) and electromagnetic interference (EMI) resilience, along with the scalability and flexibility to meet the gamut of automotive speed and design needs. Furthermore, in terms of integration, A-PHY complements Ethernet, controller area network (CAN), FlexRay and other backbones.

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