Uncompressed 8K with PCIe: Enhancing image quality

Endless innovation on the video devices market demands better digital image quality than ever. Ultra-High definition with crystal clear images becomes popular both in specialized systems, for example, medical, and on the consumer market.

Significant advances in the digital imaging technology face the challenge of transferring Ultra-High and better quality video without compression.

The USB interface becomes not enough for fast transfer of uncompressed 8K video. As far as the performance goes, PCI Express has more advantages over USB. HDMI can be used for video only while PCI Express is a universal channel, which is designed for various kinds of data transmission.

PCI Express (PCIe), the cross-platform high-performance interface, provides serial communication between a camera module and high-speed peripheral devices. With the advent of PCIe, the Ambarella SoC began to support this modern class of peripherals. The high data rate camera module plays an important role in image processing areas such as automotive, robotics, medical, and beyond.

The platform-independent PCIe interface offers the maximum possible transfer rates. By using the PCIe interface, Ambarella SoC can

• Stream uncompressed to the host in real time
• Record video to NVMe SSDs
• Transfer large amounts of video data via Wi-Fi 6 / Wi-Fi 7 network adapters with the highest throughput.

Engineering solution for uncompressed video transfer

For uncompressed video transfer, Rhonda Software has designed a solution with the Ambarella SoC connected as a peripheral (Endpoint) device to the Root Complex. This way of using the Ambarella SoC allows streaming uncompressed video to PC with extremely low latency and without any overhead or diversions via additional interfaces.

For example, Rhonda's dual-sensors camera with the Ambarella CV5 can stream up to 8K (7680x4320) in real time:

What is Rhonda's expertise?

As part of the implementation of PCIe video streaming for the CV5 and CV3 SoCs, Rhonda Software gained experience in:

• Uncompressed 8K@30 video streaming over PCIe from the camera to PC
• Simultaneous multiple video streaming over PCIe from the camera to PC and from PC to the camera at the same time
• Connection of SSD storage to Ambarella over PCIe
• 2 Ambarella SoCs communication over PCIe between each other

Enhance your image quality with PCI Express on the Ambarella SoC

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