The company has introduced the BU18TL82-M serialiser and the BU18RL82-M de-serialiser. Conventional SerDes ICs must be connected in pairs for each video transmission, but the BU18RL82-M deserialiser can be daisy-chained to enable video transmission over multiple routes via a single serialiser. The result is a reduction in the number of connectors and cables to simplify the video transmission paths, lowering both system costs and failure risks, says the company.

The ICs are also capable of monitoring whether video data is correctly transmitted end-to-end (from the SoC to the displays) by comparing CRC values. According to the company, this feature supports functional safety in automotive applications.

“The arrival of more and more electronic innovations in automotive applications, such as mirrors or the use of LCDs in instrument clusters have increased the number of panels installed per vehicle, resulting in more complex video transmission paths,” explains Stefan Drouzas, senior application marketing manager at Rohm. “As this entails higher system costs and greater risk of failure, the challenge was to simplify the video transmission pathways as much as possible. At the same time, it is important to incorporate functional safety features since frozen video in electronic mirrors and tell-tale image failures in instrument clusters can lead to serious accidents,” he says.

The ICs also have an optimised transmission rate, an integrated spread spectrum function and noise peak shifting to minimise the power consumption and lower the noise.

The SerDes ICs join the company’s SerDes ICs for automotive camera applications, the BU18xMxx-C series, which is AEC-Q100-qualified.

The BU18TL82-M serialiser, in particular, supports both the OpenLDI and MIPI-DSI input interfaces, enabling suitability for a wide range of SoCs.

The SerDes ICs are sampling now.