This proposal comes on the heels of a broad industry alliance created by ARM, Nokia, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments called mobile industry processor alliance (MIPI). It is aimed at standardizing all interfaces around baseband and applications processors. MIPI is in the process of increasing its membership and forming working group.

As a first step toward this process, National has developed a MPL physical layer, which builds on the company's expertise in high-speed interface and display technologies. MPL addresses the industry-wide problem of wide parallel interconnects to image sensors and displays. It is architected to reduce power, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and system cost while enhancing reliability and easing mechanical design for mobile products. Plus, it demonstrates the company's commitment to create open-standards for key mobile phone interfaces, which started with the release of National's PowerWise Interface (PWI) open-standard last fall. To accelerate the adoption of MPL technology, National today also released engineering samples for two products, the LM2501 legacy camera interface and LM2502 legacy CPU-mode display interface ICs. These new devices use the MPL physical layer to reduce the number of interconnect wires in a phone as well as EMI and power problems that handset designers face every day.

"Just as National Semiconductor catalyzed the mobile PC industry in the move to low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) display interfaces in the mid-90s, we want to provoke the industry to adopt an open standard for serial interfaces for handheld electronics," said Peter Henry, vice president of the portable power systems group, National Semiconductor. "We are positioning MPL as an open, royalty-free standard from the outset and we look forward to collaborating with our industry partners to bring it to market."

The first version of the MPL physical layer is based on an extremely low power, low EMI, single-ended current mode physical layer and straightforward serialization of legacy parallel interfaces. It solves problems created by having wide, high power, high-EMI video paths within handsets. It will also allow all handset manufacturers to save money from cable size reductions, especially on expensive flex cables, and reduced IC package and connector sizes.

Working with major handset makers, National anticipates completing the MPL Level-1 standard through an ad-hoc consortium or a recognized international standard's body such as the MIPI alliance.

"As the mobile handset industry matures, component standards will become a key part of cost reduction. National's MPL solution helps lower the high interconnect cost within these phones," said Neil Strother, senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. "With this move, National is bringing together a strong set of players to address this problem."

"As one of the leading mobile display module makers, Philips Mobile Display Systems recognizes amongst its customer base a growing demand for a high-speed serial display interface solution such as MPL," said Johan van de Ven, chief technology officer, Philips MDS. "We support and recognize the need for standardization in this field, e.g. through MIPI. In this context we are evaluating MPL and appreciate the pioneering role that National Semiconductor is playing in this area of technology."

"With the increasingly rich visual experience available in cellular handsets, demands on the ability to interconnect subcomponents within a phone cheaply, reliably and in a small form factor become more and more of a challenge," said Kazuaki Takanose, corporate vice president, Sony-Ericsson. "MPL looks as though it will give the industry a way of doing this in a standardized way, enabling multiple sourcing."

Likewise Philippe Béché, Wavecom's baseband IC director said "By considerably reducing the number of wires inside the flex cable, the MPL architecture allows us to improve EMI level, power consumption and leads to a more cost-effective solution. MPL will help us shorten the integration time of Wavecom solutions in our large number of customer designs."