See3CAM_CX3RDK _e-CAM59CX3 Application User Manual
10-March-2014
to change without notice
Page 4 of 16
2 Introduction
Denebola (See3CAM_CX3RDK) is a USB3.0 UVC Reference Design Kit (RDK) developed by e-
con Systems using the EZ-USB® CX3 USB3.0 Peripheral controller from Cypress
Semiconductors. The Cypress EZ-USB® CX3 is a USB 3.0 peripheral controller that enables
developers to add USB 3.0 connectivity to any image sensors compliant with Mobile Industry
Processor Interface (MIPI) Camera Serial Interface Type 2 (CSI-2) standard. The Denebola
Reference Design Kit developed using EZ-USB® CX3 is a complete Reference Design Kit and
has OmniVision OV5640 CMOS image sensor interfaced to it through 2-lane MIPI CSI-2 interface.
This is a fully functional camera reference design kit that can stream uncompressed 720p60,
1080p30 and full 5MP@15fps. e-con Systems, a Silver level partner of Cypress Partner program,
has developed the reference design kit for EZ-USB® CX3 from Cypress Semiconductors and this
kit can be purchased directly from our webstore.
Based on the proven EZ-USB FX3 Platform, CX3 comes with an ARM9 CPU and 512KB SRAM
that provides 200 MIPS of computational power. The CX3 supports MIPI CSI-2 version 1.01, up
to 4 date lanes with data speed up to 1Gbps per lane, for a total bandwidth of 4 Gbps. CX3 is
ideally suited for high-definition or high-speed image-capturing applications. CX3 supports
multiple peripheral interfaces such as I2C, SPI, and UART, which can be programmed to support
Pan, Tilt and Zoom or other camera control functions.
Denebola RDK is a two-board solution containing base board designed around Cypress CX3
USB3.0 Peripheral controller and the Camera daughter board (part number: e-CAM59CX3)
designed using OmniVision OV5640 CMOS image sensor based Autofocus camera module. E-
con also plans to support multiple camera sensor daughter boards in the future that can be used
to evaluate CX3 performance and also other CMOS Image sensors.
See3CAM_CX3RDK with e-CAM59CX3 is a UVC compliant device and does not require any
drivers to be installed on the PC. The native UVC drivers of Windows and Linux Operating
Systems shall be compatible with this camera. E-con also provides the sample application that
demonstrates some of the features of this camera. However, this camera can be utilized any
DirectShow application such as Skype etc.
3 Scope
e-con provides a sample DirectShow application, called e-CAMView, along with the
See3CAM_CX3RDK. The e-CAMView is a typical DirectShow camera application, but
customized to demonstrate the features of See3CAM_CX3RDK. This document describes these
features of this sample camera application when it is used with See3CAM_CX3RDK.
4 Description
The See3CAM_CX3RDK with e-CAM59CX3 is a USB 3.0 device capable of streaming camera
frames VGA @ 60 fps, 720p @ 60 fps, 1080p @ 30fps and 5MP @ 15 fps when connected to
USB3.0 host port by leveraging the full throughput of USB3.0. It also supports all the features with
a USB 2.0 fallback. However, in USB 2.0, See3CAM_CX3RDK with e-CAM59CX3 can stream
only in VGA resolution and at about 30 fps only.
