Leopard Imaging to Offer Camera Module Based on Valens Chipsets

Valens Semiconductor and Leopard Imaging have partnered to design a camera module that will allow automotive OEMs and Tier 1s to significantly reduce time to market for systems built on the A-PHY industry standard.

As a partner for automotive system-on-a-chip (SoC) vendors, Leopard Imaging will serve as a design house for machine vision, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous systems based on A-PHY. The new product by Leopard Imaging will be the first off-the-shelf A-PHY camera module on the market, simplifying the integration of MIPI A-PHY and Valens VA7000 chipsets into cars, the companies said.

The camera module will include an advanced automotive sensor, and the company will offer the module with an A-PHY deserializer board connected to a standard processor-based compute unit. Leopard Imaging plans on adding additional sensors and drivers to support other processors in response to market requirements, all connected with Valens Semiconductor VA7000 chipsets.

Components of the Leopard Imaging A-PHY camera module, including the Valens Semiconductor VA7031 serializer and VA7044 quad deserializer. Courtesy of Leopard Imaging.

MIPI A-PHY, which was originally released to members in September 2020, is the first standardized, asymmetric, long-reach serializer-deserializer (SerDes) physical layer specification targeted for ADAS, autonomous driving systems, in-vehicle infotainment, displays, and other surround-sensor applications such as cameras, lidar, and radar, according to MIPI Alliance.

A-PHY’s primary mission is to transfer high-speed data between cameras and displays and their related electronic control units.

Bill Pu, CEO at Leopard Imaging, said, “The new connectivity standard offers a number of key technological breakthroughs — including in bandwidth, link distance, and resilience to electro magnetic interference (EMI) — all of this fuels our expectation that this module will generate significant interest from our automotive customers and partners.”