The MIPI C-PHY Standard: A Generalized Multiconductor Signaling Scheme

This article introduced the C-PHY signaling standard, a new multi conductor solution enabling data transfer bandwidth efficiencies over constrained transmission channels through multilevel signaling supporting approximately 2.3 b of information per Ul. The concept of three-phase encoding, along with circuit-level techniques and considerations for implementing this innovative scheme, was introduced, as were the higher-level mapping requirements and some of the protocol-level implications, including ease of clock recovery and efficient sideband signaling using unmapped words. With this implementation, C-PHY represents an incarnation of a new class of digital buses that break the mold of conventional signaling combining the benefits of single ended and differential signaling to keep the pin count low without sacrificing immunity to electromagnetic noise.