To address the explosive growth in the mobile industry, the Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance was created to define and promote open standards for interfaces to mobile application processors. The Unified Protocol (UniPro) is one in a family of standards addressing the mobile market.
The Arasan UniPro Controller IP core is fully compliant with the UniPro specification version 1.6 and supports the physical adapter layer of the M-PHY® specification. MIPI UniPro is a high-performance, chip-to-chip, serial interconnect bus for mobile applications. Designed to support up to 5Gbps per data lane, it is scalable from one to four bidirectional lanes. To achieve optimal performance the Arasan UniPro Controller implements the following layers in hardware:
- Physical adapter layer
- Data link layer
- Network layer
- Transport layer
TC0 and TC1 traffic classes are handled on a priority-based transmission, and additional features include support of multiple power modes, error detection and handling, and data transmission preemption.
Unique to the Arasan controller is optional support that utilizes end-to-end flow control within UniPro to maximize transmission throughput and efficiency. Designed specifically for applications such as mobile phones, portable handheld media players, and mobile terminals, UniPro provides the high-speed connectivity needed between the applications processor and application devices such as wireless modules, graphics processors, multimedia accelerators, and storage subsystems. Targeted specifically for mobile phones, UniPro will be the high-speed chip connection of choice moving forward.
