Intersil announces industry's first video SerDes transceiver targeting automotive rear view video safety systems

MILPITAS, USA: Intersil Corp. has announced the availability of the ISL76321, a unique Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) interface IC targeting automotive rear view safety systems.

This single chip transceiver solution simplifies system design by sending video data, bi-directional control information and power across a single shielded twisted pair (STP) cable.

The product allows designers to lower system costs and simplify designs while improving transmission distance and video image quality. The ISL76321 expands Intersil's portfolio to provide customers a complete rear view camera safety solution, joining the Intersil Techwell display management, LED lighting, ambient light sensing and power management devices.

The ISL76321 concentrates up to 16-bits wide video data and bi-directional I2C control information onto a single high-speed STP cable, and can transmit data in excess of 20 meters.

Remote control of the far end of the link, an attractive feature of the ISL76321, allows a controller to access an imager via its I2C interface through which operating modes and adjustments, such as exposure and windowing, can be made. Ultimately this feature facilitates camera operation under dynamically changing conditions. Sending control data over the same cable as the video data eliminates unnecessary complexity in wiring looms and reduces weight.

A camera link comprises a pair of ISL76321s connected via a single STP cable to establish a high resolution, serial data link between a remote video camera and a central control unit.

This interface transceiver accommodates a wide pixel clock range from 8MHz to 50MHz, and raw data rates up to 1000Mbps. This provides a robust link for a host of automotive video-based passive and active safety systems including Lane Departure Warning, Signpost Recognition and Pedestrian Avoidance systems.

Interest in such systems is increasing, as demonstrated by recent statements from the US auto-safety regulator (the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) with proposals for backup cameras on all new vehicles in the US by 2014 to reduce the dangers of drivers backing over pedestrians.