Nvidia Corporation

Joshua Wise

Stephen Donald Lew

To support sparse scanout of an image sensor, an image data protocol such as the MIPI CSI protocol is extended with support for pixel coordinates in long packets. The receiver uses these to compute where in memory these pixels should be stored or where on a display they should be displayed. Truly sparse scanout is supported for any arbitrarily shaped image areas including for example elliptical readout for fisheye lenses. These techniques save MIPI and serializer/deserializer bandwidth in automotive and other applications, allowing for more cameras per vehicle or other host. Such techniques can be implemented in a way that is compatible with prior MIPI standardized approaches.

Sparse scanout for image sensors

A system for, and method of, pixel data compression and a smartphone incorporating the system or the method. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) a differential pulse code modulation encoder operable differentially to compress the two pixel values losslessly to yield two losslessly compressed pixel values and (2) an entropy encoder coupled to the differential pulse code modulation encoder and configured to receive and entropy-encode the losslessly compressed pixel values using a tiered technique to yield entropy-encoded, losslessly compressed pixel values. values using a tiered technique to yield Huffman-encoded, losslessly compressed pixel values.

Growing community of inventors

Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Joshua Wise