Hi everyone,
Almost ready to give y'all an update on how the shield's coming along. So far, so good!
In the meantime, I have a question to pose to the Galileo makers about MIPI interfaces, specifically the Camera Serial Interface (CSI), which the Rasperry Pi camera uses and the Display Serial Interface (DSI). I was thinking of having a CSI Rx interface for cameras and a DSI Tx interface for displays. To do so, I've found that Lattice offers CPLDs and FPGAs that offer MIPI IP that can be used on any of their devices:
Got MIPI? If Not, Lattice Will Show You How | EE Times
However, the PCIe IP is a yearly license and costs a minimum of $99/year on special ($1600 normally according to Digikey: PCI-EXP1-PM-U3 Lattice Semiconductor Corporation | PCI-EXP1-PM-U3-ND | DigiKey). With the Altera Cyclone IV FPGA I'm thinking of using I have the opposite problem; we can use the free-to-try Xillybus PCIe DMA IP, but there's only 3rd party paid IP available for the MIPI (CSI/DSI) interfaces.
I thought of a cool hybrid involving both an Altera FPGA and a cheap Lattice MachXO2/3 CPLD. The MachXO2/3 would have a parallel-to-DSITx and CSIRx-to-parallel interface that connected MIPI devices (using Lattice's IP on the MachXO2/3) to the Altera FPGA. The Altera FPGA would then using the Xillybus PCIe DMA IP to talk to the Quark via PCIe. It's a bit of a complex setup and requires multiple tools (Altera, Lattice), but it does give you the necessary IP to do both MIPI and PCIe.
My questions for you, the viewer:
1) Do you see a personal use for MIPI (CSI/DSI) interfaces in your projects?
2) If so, does the setup above (Altera FPGA + Lattice CPLD) sound scary or would you be cool with it?
Thanks for the feedback and stay tuned!
Matt
