FPGA as Companion Chip for Image Sensors

You want a flexible connection?

ASIC is not available, or minimum quantity is too high?

As for image processing, FPGAs are ideal to assume the role of a companion chip for image sensor. The connection of the image sensor to the processor is done with special regard to each customer's individual needs. Another advantage: You make yourself independent of the ASICs, and are able to choose the functionality on your own. The availability of the companion chip is also not a problem any longer.

Example: We realized the connection of an omnivision image sensors OV3650/OV3640 to a PXA255 XScale Intel processor. Instead of an omnivision ASIC OV620, a Lattice FPGA was used. The preview function as well as the image transmission were implemented according to the customer's wishes. The decimation for calculating the preview was made for various camera resolutions in the FPGA. In order to make sure that the processor does not always have to be synchronized to the camera, images or previews were buffered in an SDRAM.

We would be glad to realize the connection of an image sensor to your processor, too, even on other FPGA platforms.