Open Source MIPI FPGAs

The Open Source Lattice NX MIPI FPGAs are limited to 2.5 Gbits/s, or about 1.2 Mpixels @60FPS. For applications requiring more bandwidth one has to use an FPGA not supported by the open source Yosys synthesis and Nextpnr placement tools.

AMD’s Xilinx has a great reputation at the high end of the market. For low cost FPGAs, there are better choices.

INTEL’s Altera is the other high end FPGA vendor. Intels drama-filled relationship with Altera has been much in the news recently.

Lattice Semiconductor’s  Crosslink  NX-33 is limited to 2.5Gbits/s MIPI, but it has a USB-3 device hard core and is a closed source FPGA, so it is listed here. The difference between the NX-17/40 is that the NX-33 is that the latter uses fabric from the Certus series of chips. So the NX-33 has only one PLL, no DDR support and no Data Q Strobe (DQS). DQS is output by a memory chip, signaling it to register what is on the bus. NX-33 also exposes a 5 Gbit/s SerDes channel.  The $250 NX-33 tinyCLUNX developer kit is recommended.

Efinix is a newer company, closed source, but the hardware offerings are evolving rapidly and look most interesting.