HD Mobile Phone Camera that I can read from with an FPGA?

[Jarrod Roberson]

I am working on a prototype that I need a very low power, lightweight HD camera ( 720P ) would be good enough 1080P would be better.

I am using a Xilinx Spartan 6 LX9 to process the video stream and overlay graphics on top of the video before passing it on.

There are plenty of standard def OSC solutions, but none that are HD

I have searched all over the internet for an appropriate camera and I can't find anything that has enough information for me to decide if I can get the information from the camera into the FPGA.

There are some camera units on the chinese import websites, but the information on them is basically non-existent.

Short of buying something like a Mobius HD and tearing it apart, where can I look to find out what components a cheap HD camera like that has for sensors and just get enough components to do what I want.

Basically I want an HD "board camera" hopefully without the "board" ideally I want something small like in a mobile phone that I can add just what I need to read from it and process the signal.

[suicidaleggroll]

How about this:
http://digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,648,931&Prod=VMOD-CAM

You wouldn't have to use that exact board, but they give schematics, the part number for the cameras used, and example code to interface with their Atlys (Spartan-6 LX45) board.  It's not 16:9, but it does have enough resolution to crop it down to 720p if you wanted.

[Jarrod Roberson]

Thanks I will have to check that out! I hadn't seen this board before, obviously.

[Zad]

Why not just use a Raspberry Pi camera board?

[Jarrod Roberson]

All the Raspberry Pi cameras seem to use this CSI bus, I don't want to use a Raspberry Pi as it is way too big and power hungry for my problem.

I would need to find a stand alone solution for this CSI bus that I can include in my project.

[fake-name]

Uh..... is there a reason you seem to think you can't interface to a camera using a CSI bus from the FPGA?

From the look of it, the hardware interface is just LVDS. Hell, here is a existing CSI-2 IP module for Xilinx FPGAs: http://www.xilinx.com/products/intellectual-property/1-3EQK2B.htm

[Jarrod Roberson]

I am doing a proof of concept right now, funds are slim. I found that CSI-2 IP core, but I don't think I can pay for a license for it at this stage, just more for me to have to implement myself for this prototype that isn't in the direct domain of the problem I am trying to solve.

Also the Raspberry Pi cameras are still bigger than I want for my final design, by a factor of about 10X. I want to source something the size of a mobile phone camera.

I found a OV5642 that I ordered yesterday. This should do for my proof of concept, but I want a smaller camera eventually, so I will keep looking for something the footprint of a mobile phone camera.

Thanks for the pointers everyone, any suggestions are appreciated.

[fake-name]

I am doing a proof of concept right now, funds are slim. I found that CSI-2 IP core, but I don't think I can pay for a license for it at this stage, just more for me to have to implement myself for this prototype that isn't in the direct domain of the problem I am trying to solve.

Also the Raspberry Pi cameras are still bigger than I want for my final design, by a factor of about 10X. I want to source something the size of a mobile phone camera.

I found a OV5642 that I ordered yesterday. This should do for my proof of concept, but I want a smaller camera eventually, so I will keep looking for something the footprint of a mobile phone camera.

Thanks for the pointers everyone, any suggestions are appreciated.

Wait, the PI camera is too small? Wat? It *is* a cell-phone camera. You do know you can remove the camera from the carrier board, right?

It's actually just a Omnivision 5647 sensor on a break-out board.