Electronic – Interfacing with MIPI camera sensors

cameracsi

I want to create an electronics project that will involve cameras.
Though i want to create my own system, i want to create my own PCB and not be dependant upon existing solutions like development boards or raspberry pi.

I have come along sensors from omnivions.

These are MIPI CSI camera sensors. This is a datasheet of one of these sensors:

sensor datasheet

What application processor can i use to interface with them?
In page 15 you can see a list of all the pins.
Can this work only with CSI chipsets like DaVinci? Or i can interface it with an arduino DUE or other solutions?

The application i want to experiment on is the standard video record and store to SD card. If there is an OS (Linux or other RTOS) in the application processor even better.

Best Answer

So, you will need "something" that can drive/configure your sensor as well as read data from it and send it to the SD/PC. My solution was to use a EZUSB FX3 usb microcontroller. I was able to create a quick interface between the image sensor and the FX3, and then, I did not have to worry about creating a usb communication between the FX3 and the PC or SD because it includes SPI and USB interfaces' logic. So, your custom board will only have the three major components: the sensor, the FX3 and PROM for storing configuration data of FX3. The rest will be just simple resistors caps and power components. You will have to adjust the software part - as most of it is already written by the company as an example.

Bottom line is, you want to use some system on a chip, like the one above or similar, to have a relatively easy and fast solution.

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