Does the MIPI alliance standardise or are there at least any conventions for connectors and pin outs between devices that use there protocol specifications?
The device I am interested in (Microsoft Kinect One ToF ASIC) reportedly uses MIPI D-PHY configured as 2 x 4-lanes for communication via the connector in the lower left of the board imaged below.
Additionally can anybody name the type of connector used in the image (ignore the green square overlay in the image)?
Best Answer
No, MIPI CSI specifies the image signals, but not the connector itself or the pinout.
The thing is, different camera modules may have different supply requirements (eventually even multiple supplies), and may require additional signals (e.g. for driving a flash strobe, focusing, zoom, etc... some of these functionalities typically controlled through a secondary interface based on I2C or MIPI I3C).
All these signals (MIPI CSI + control interface + supplies + ...), which are different from module to module, usually need to be grouped on a single connector to make it as compact as possible. Moreover, devices integrating cameras usually have very specific mechanical requirements (device thickness, ruggedness, ...) which call for dedicated kind of connectors, so having a unified connector or pinout would actually make things more complicated (or even impossible) for manufacturers. So there is no need to standardize this, nobody would follow this part of the spec.
So to get the pinout, you need the datasheet of this module.
As for what this specific connector part number is, I don't know. It is a board-to-board or "mezzanine" connector, but I don't know which one. Start by counting the number of pins, measuring the pitch, and use mouser/digikey search engines to filter the parts. Then look at the datasheet details to check the exact dimensions. But there are lots and lots of those, some from well-known manufacturers, some from unknown cheap chinese ones, sometimes only with only minor differences between them, but still making them incompatible with each other.