Cypress’s EZ-USB CX3 Camera Controller Delivers 5Gb USB 3.0 Performance

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. announced that Raytrix GmbH has selected its EZ-USB CX3 USB 3.0 camera controller for its new 3-D camera.

The controller, which is in production, delivers 5Gb performance to the R42 3-D Light Field Camera. The R42 supports up to 40-megapixel resolution and 4,000 images, leveraging the CX3 solution’s throughput to provide 3-D images with extended depth-of-field. The camera is small enough for convenient use in applications, including machine vision, motion tracking and surface inspection.

EZ-USB CX3 is a flexible USB 3.0 camera controller. It allows developers to add USB 3.0 connectivity to any image sensors supporting the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Camera Serial Interface Type 2 (CSI-2) standard. CX3 is suited for HD, high-speed image-capturing applications and is capable of streaming uncompressed video at 1,080p at 30 frames per second or 720p at 60fps. The solution is supported by the new Denebola reference design kit from Cypress’s partner, e-con Systems Pvt Ltd. The kit accelerates time to market for HD cameras with a ready-for-production reference board that leverages CX3’s SuperSpeed USB performance to process large image files and stream HD video without compression, which degrades image quality.

“The EZ-USB CX3 USB 3.0 controller delivered exactly what we needed for the R42 camera,” said Dr. Lennart Wietzke, founder, Ratrix. “CX3’s USB 3.0 performance enables the R42 to provide images with unparalleled 3-D depth. And the unique EZ-USB flexibility, along with the strong technical support from Cypress, shortened our design cycle.“

“Cypress has been a technology leader in USB since 1996, with unparalleled Low-Speed and High-Speed USB solutions. With the addition of the CX3 camera controller to our unique FX3, FX3S and HX3 solutions, we now have the industry’s strongest portfolio of SuperSpeed USB as well,” said Mark Fu, senior director of the USB 3.0 business unit, Cypress. “We’re excited at the customer response to CX3, as shown by its design win in Raytrix’s groundbreaking R42 3-D camera.“

Fu added: “The robust reference design kit from e-con Systems extends our design support for CX3. The kit streamlines the design process, making it easier than ever to bring top quality HD cameras to market quickly.“

“We worked closely with Cypress to develop our new Denebola reference design kit around the CX3 camera controller,” said Ashok Babu, president, e-con Systems. “The USB 3.0 camera market is gaining momentum with machine vision, industrial, scientific, medical and consumer products, and CX3 is a strong fit for these applications. With Cypress’s detailed collateral, designers can use our kit to efficiently create USB Video Class cameras that ‘plug and play’ with major OSs.“

The Denebola (See3CAM_CX3RDK) USB 3.0 reference board employs the CX3 controller to interface to an OmniVision OV5640 CMOS image sensor through a 2-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface. It enumerates as a USB Video Class (UVC) compliant camera and works with the UVC device drivers of major OSs. The RDK includes built-in SPI Flash and I2C EEPROM for CX3 firmware storage, as well as a JTAG and RS232 interface for firmware debugging. Designers can use the kit’s GPIO headers to connect additional interface boards to add camera control functions such as pan, tilt, zoom, lighting and sync in/out. In addition, designers can also replace the OV5640 CMOS image sensor with any other image sensor by developing just a image sensor daughter board that can be plugged on to the Denebola kit and modifying the firmware. E-con also provides additional camera daughter boards as accessories for this Denebola kit.

The EZ-USB CX3 programmable USB 3.0 camera controller supports MIPI CSI-2 version 1.01, up to 4 data lanes at speed up to 1Gb/s per lane, for a total bandwidth of 4Gb/s. CX3 supports image formats including RAW8/10/12/14, YUV422 (CCIR/ITU 8/10-bit), and RGB888/666/565. Based on the EZ-USB FX3 peripheral controller platform, CX3 comes with an ARM9 CPU and 512 KB SRAM, providing 200 MIPS of computational power for on-chip image data processing. CX3 supports multiple peripheral interfaces such as I2C, SPI, and UART, which can be programmed to support Pan, Tilt and Zoom or other camera control functions.