Introspect Technology, leading manufacturer of test and measurement products for high-speed applications, announced today that its SV5C-DPTX MIPI D-PHY Generator is the first in the world to support the latest MIPI Alliance® D-PHY℠ specification, v3.5. Most significantly, the SV5C-DPTX Generator now supports the optional embedded clock mode where only the encoded data is transmitted over a data lane, without requiring a forwarded clock. Additionally, the SV5C-DPTX MIPI Generator supports 128b-132b encoding, and it is fully backward compatible to earlier versions of the D-PHY specification.

“As more manufacturers use MIPI interfaces to enable safety-critical applications, there is an ever-growing requirement to test these interfaces with stimulus waveforms that cover the entire gamut of protocol sophistication,” says Dr. Mohamed Hafed, chief executive officer at Introspect Technology. “With this in mind, we leveraged our unique ATE-on-Bench architecture and corresponding physical layer technology to deliver exactly that. Not only is the SV5C-DPTX MIPI D-PHY Generator capable of performing protocol testing based on embedded clock signaling and forwarded-clock signaling, but it is also able to provide complete physical layer characterization and conformance testing,” he added.

“It is encouraging to see this support for the latest version of MIPI-D-PHY and key new features such as the optional embedded clock mode," said Sanjiv Desai, chair of the MIPI Alliance. "We appreciate Introspect Technology's active involvement with MIPI over the past decade and look forward to their continued innovation in tools that strengthen our ecosystem." 

With the optional embedded clock mode, a 128b-132b data encoding scheme is used on the data lanes, from which a clock can be recovered on the receiver side, removing the need for a dedicated clock lane. Additionally, this latest version of the D-PHY℠ specification runs at 9 Gb/s and 11 Gb/s for its short channel, which enables the latest ultra-high-definition displays and beyond. In true Introspect Technology fashion, the SV5C-DPTX MIPI D-PHY Generator exceeds these rates, thus offering product engineers the ability to truly stress their receiver designs and characterize them beyond the rated specifications. Additionally, switching between embedded clock mode and forwarded clock mode happens in software and is instantaneous—a true enabler for fast testing and data collection during characterization or high-volume yield ramps.