On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:56:38 +0100, pes <none@none.com> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I' m looking for solutions to interface a 1.3Mpixels CMOS image sensor, 
>I' ve thought to use a FPGA but it seems to be a little expensive.
>What about the market? Is there dedicated circuits to realize the 
>interface and stock the data? Is there processors with DMA transfert 
>which allow to interface the sensor?
>
>Thanks for your help.

Depends on exactly what you want to do, but you could easily copy from a sensor  to SRAM with a
cheap CPLD, whcih could  alsp probably handle  dual-porting to a micro bus. 

On Dec 7, 12:56 am, pes <n...@none.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I' m looking for solutions to interface a 1.3Mpixels CMOS image sensor,
> I' ve thought to use a FPGA but it seems to be a little expensive.
> What about the market? Is there dedicated circuits to realize the
> interface and stock the data? Is there processors with DMA transfert
> which allow to interface the sensor?

Look for a microprocessor with a dedicated image
sensor interface, or a programmable FIFO.  The
best choice depends on what you want to do with
the data.

If you are just capturing the image and then
passing it on to USB, then the Cypress CY7C68013
EZ-USB might work.  It has a programmable FIFO
that can feed data directly to the USB, and is
widely used in hi-res webcams.

If you need to process the data, then you should
consider something with a dedicated image sensor
interface, such as an AVR32 AP7000.  In addition
to the ISI, it also has a vector pixel processor.
This will give you way more processing power
than the EZ-USB, but it will be a far more
complex design.

The FPGA could also be a good solution,
depending on what you are trying to do. An FPGA
with enough internal memory to hold a 1.3MPix
image will cost a fortune, but you can use a
cheaper FPGA with an external SDRAM.

What image sensor are you using?

What is your objective?  Sucking pixels
out of the image sensor is not difficult,
but after that, it all depends on what you
want to do with the data.

On Friday, in article
     <47590a87$0$31947$426a74cc@news.free.fr> none@none.com "pes"
     wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I' m looking for solutions to interface a 1.3Mpixels CMOS image sensor, 
>I' ve thought to use a FPGA but it seems to be a little expensive.
>What about the market? Is there dedicated circuits to realize the 
>interface and stock the data? Is there processors with DMA transfert 
>which allow to interface the sensor?

*Most* microprocessors do not have the DMA speed to achieve this.

What are you trying to acheive?

Single Frame capture (like a snapshot camera)?

Small video clip or continuous video?

Once you have the data in then what? As this will determine how
often you can get single frames etc..

You do have somewhere around 4MB of RAM on this microprocessor as well?
Otherwise you have nowhere to put the pixels.

Have you done anything with video before? Your message sounds like you
have never done anything with video before.

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/>              GNU H8 & mailing list info
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/>             For those web sites you hate

Hi,

I' m looking for solutions to interface a 1.3Mpixels CMOS image sensor, 
I' ve thought to use a FPGA but it seems to be a little expensive.
What about the market? Is there dedicated circuits to realize the 
interface and stock the data? Is there processors with DMA transfert 
which allow to interface the sensor?

Thanks for your help.