VIS-101 · Embedded Vision · Practitioner
MIPI CSI-2 & GMSL2 Camera Interfaces — full syllabus
The physical and protocol layers of embedded camera interfaces, and how to bring up a link that will not start.
Duration3 full days in person · 6 half-days online
Cohortmax 14 in person · 20 online
Pricefrom SAR 7,880 in person · local pricing per city
Delivery35% principles · 20% guided investigation · 45% engineering studio
Who this course is for
Hardware and bring-up engineers responsible for getting a camera link running on a new board — and for diagnosing it when the receiver reports nothing but errors.
Prerequisites
- Basic digital electronics: differential signalling, termination, reading a schematic
- Linux command line and comfort with register-level documentation
- Oscilloscope experience is helpful but not required
Course outline
Day 1 — The CSI-2 protocol
- Packet structure: short vs long packets, frame and line boundaries
- Virtual channels and how one receiver serves several sensors
- Data types: RAW8/10/12, YUV and embedded metadata lines
- Lane count and data-rate budgeting for a given sensor mode
- LP/HS state transitions and what the receiver sees when they go wrong
Day 2 — The PHY layers
- D-PHY signalling: HS/LP levels, clock lane, lane skew and settling time
- C-PHY: three-wire trios and symbol encoding, and when it beats D-PHY
- Timing parameters the receiver must be told: settle, clk-prepare, termination
- Layout and interconnect faults: impedance, length matching, stubs
- Reading a sensor datasheet's output-timing table without guessing
Day 3 — SerDes links for long cables
- Why CSI-2 stops at centimetres: serializer/deserializer pairs
- GMSL2 architecture: forward and reverse channels, link training and lock
- FPD-Link compared; I2C tunnelling to the sensor and its quirks
- Power-over-coax design and its failure modes
- Debugging with a scope and the deserializer's error counters
Hands-on labs
- Lab: Compute the lane-rate budget for three sensor modes (resolution, fps, bit depth) and check each against the receiver's per-lane limit
- Lab: Classify a failing link from receiver error counters alone — ECC, CRC, SoT and frame-sync errors — and match each to its physical cause
- Lab: Bring up a GMSL2 link from cold: verify PoC, link lock and tunneled I2C access to the sensor's registers
- Lab: Inject faults one at a time (lane swap, missing termination, over-long cable) and record the signature each produces in counters and on the scope
Capstone project
Take one camera link from dead to validated streaming: budget the mode, bring up the physical link (direct CSI-2 or over GMSL2), and deliver a debug log documenting every failure signature you hit — counter dumps and scope observations — with the evidence that identified each cause and the fix that cleared it.
What you leave with
- A packet-level mental model of CSI-2 you can debug against
- D-PHY vs C-PHY trade-offs and the timing parameters that matter
- A link-debug playbook keyed to receiver error counters
- A repeatable GMSL2/FPD-Link bring-up procedure including PoC and I2C tunnelling
Upcoming dates
| Dates | Where | Seats | Early bird | Regular | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Nov – 24 Nov 20263 full days | RiyadhIn person · KAFD Conference Centre | 8 of 14 | SAR 7,090until 23 Oct | ||
| 29 Nov – 1 Dec 20263 full days | Kuwait CityIn person · Al Hamra Tower | 3 of 14 | KWD 580until 30 Oct | ||
| 29 Nov – 1 Dec 20263 full days | MuscatIn person · Knowledge Oasis Muscat | 8 of 14 | OMR 730until 30 Oct | ||
| 6 Dec – 13 Dec 20266 half-days | Gulf bandLive online · 09:00–13:00 GMT+3 | 8 of 20 | US$1,350until 6 Nov | ||
| 7 Dec – 9 Dec 20263 full days | OttawaIn person · Kanata North Tech Park | 3 of 14 | CAD 2,570until 7 Nov | ||
| 7 Dec – 14 Dec 20266 half-days | Europe bandLive online · 09:00–13:00 CET | 13 of 20 | US$1,350until 7 Nov | ||
| 14 Dec – 16 Dec 20263 full days | TorontoIn person · MaRS Discovery District | 8 of 14 | CAD 2,570until 14 Nov | ||
| 14 Dec – 16 Dec 20263 full days | LondonIn person · Shoreditch Works | 3 of 14 | GBP 1,480until 14 Nov | ||
| 14 Dec – 21 Dec 20266 half-days | Americas bandLive online · 13:00–17:00 ET | 18 of 20 | US$1,350until 14 Nov | ||
| 21 Dec – 23 Dec 20263 full days | BerlinIn person · Factory Görlitzer Park | 8 of 14 | EUR 1,740until 21 Nov |
Book a seat, or bring this course to your team
Seats can be reserved online; private delivery runs on-site or live online, adapted to your stack.
Questions about fit or prerequisites? Email hello@kernelsystems.academy. To save this syllabus, print this page to PDF from your browser.