MIPI Alliance Releases Specifications to Streamline Integration of In-Vehicle Displays, Add Functional Safety to Display Data Streams

Display specifications provide standardized framework to support the growing bandwidth and functional safety requirements of ADAS, ADS, IVI and other automotive applications

PISCATAWAY, N.J., May 4, 2021—The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, announced the completion of its MIPI Automotive SerDes Solutions (MASS) "display stack," a set of interface specifications designed to streamline display integration and support the growing bandwidth and functional safety demands required by the increasing number of high-performance displays used in next-generation vehicles.

The new specifications build upon MIPI A-PHY, the first industry-standard, high-performance, highly reliable, asymmetric SerDes interface, as well as industry-leading display protocols MIPI Display Serial Interface 2 (MIPI DSI-2) and VESA Embedded DisplayPort and DisplayPort (VESA eDP/DP), to create long-reach source-to-sink connectivity between automotive displays and their associated electronic control units (ECUs).

The new specifications that complete the display stack are:

• MIPI Protocol Adaptation Layers (PALs) for MIPI DSI-2 and VESA eDP/DP, to allow display components based on these protocols to map their video, audio and control data to A-PHY’s A-Packet format for transmission over long-reach MIPI A-PHY networks
• MIPI Display Service Extensions (DSE) v1.0, providing functional safety enablers and support for High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP)
• MIPI Display Command Set (DCS) v1.5, an update to the standard command set for MIPI DSI-2

The completion of the display stack is a major step in the creation of the overarching MASS framework, which will provide a standardized, reliable, long-reach connectivity framework for automotive image sensor and display integration with built-in functional safety and security enablers. For displays, it supports point-to-point and daisy-chained topologies, as well as heterogeneous displays, and its use cases include lane-keep assist displays, "virtual" side-view mirror and backup camera displays, as well as co-pilot infotainment displays and others.

"The automotive industry finally has a standardized approach for integrating new high-performance displays that are crucial to advances in safety, automation and the in-car experience," said Joel Huloux, chairman of MIPI Alliance. "The introduction of these display specifications has the power to create a thriving, expanding ecosystem that offers greater choice, promotes interoperability and accelerates innovation in automotive display systems."

MIPI DSE v1.0 standardizes functional safety enablers within display solutions to help designs meet ISO 26262 requirements from ASIL B to ASIL D. These enablers include link failure detection, timeout monitoring, cyclic redundancy check (CRC) to detect data transmission failures, and a message counter for replay protection. HDCP is also enabled by DSE v1.0, and additional security features will be added through future DSE releases and upcoming MIPI security specifications.

A new version of MIPI DSI-2, v2.0, with updates to include video-to-command mode transition, adaptive refresh panel, and the latest VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) and Display Compression-M (VDC-M) codecs, is scheduled for release midyear 2021.

According to Bill Lempesis, executive director at VESA, “VESA and MIPI Alliance have a long history of collaborating on the development and implementation of our standards to enhance the mobile display ecosystem, such as the adoption of our VESA display compression codecs DSC and VDC-M into the MIPI DSI-2 standard. We actively support the latest efforts of MIPI Alliance to extend the tunneling of our DisplayPort and Embedded DisplayPort video standards over MIPI A-PHY to bring such benefits as higher video bandwidth, low power consumption and increased design flexibility to automotive display applications.”

The MIPI Display Working Group will offer a webinar, "Enabling Automotive Displays Using MIPI Automotive SerDes Solutions," on May 19 at 8 a.m. PDT to provide more information about the new specifications. To register, please visit: https://bit.ly/3gQkOsN.

A recently published MIPI white paper also explores trends in automotive displays and shares a recent study that validated the ability of the VDC-M codec in MIPI DSI-2 to provide visually lossless compression for automotive images. A MIPI webinar on May 26 will focus on the use of compression in DSI-2 for all application areas.

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About MIPI Alliance

MIPI Alliance (MIPI) develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries. There is at least one MIPI specification in every smartphone manufactured today. Founded in 2003, the organization has over 325 member companies worldwide and more than 15 active working groups delivering specifications within the mobile ecosystem. Members of the organization include handset manufacturers, device OEMs, software providers, semiconductor companies, application processor developers, IP tool providers, automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, and test and test equipment companies, as well as camera, tablet and laptop manufacturers. For more information, please visit www.mipi.org.