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Integrating an External Arducam Camera with the Nitrogen95 SMARC SOM

Integrating an External Arducam Camera with the Nitrogen95 SMARC SOM

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Integrating an External Arducam Camera with the Nitrogen95 SMARC SOM

Learn how Ezurio can help integrate external cameras easily into your design.

If you’ve worked on camera bring-up before, you already know where time gets lost. The sensor might be fine, but then issues appear with device trees, drivers, or the image pipeline before you ever see a usable frame.

With the Nitrogen95 SMARC SOM and an Arducam xISP camera, the process becomes much more predictable because the hardware and software are already aligned through the partner ecosystem.

What You Start With

The Nitrogen95 SMARC Evaluation Kit (EVK) is a complete development platform where everything is designed to work together out of the box.

Nitrogen95 SMARC

NXP i.MX95-based SMARC SOM

Touch Display

7-inch display with stand

Sona NX611

NXP IW611-based Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4

SMARC Carrier

Carrier board for Ezurio SMARC SOMs

FlexPIFA Antenna

2.4GHz/5GHz dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth antenna

Accessory Cables

Dual DB9 serial cable and power supply

Camera

Arducam x-ISP 3.8MP 4K camera

Hardware Connection Is Already Solved

The physical integration is straightforward:

  • The camera connects to CSI0 (J11) on the carrier board
  • Uses a 22-pin FPC cable
  • Power is supplied via a 2-pin jumper (J28 → camera)

There’s no need to map signals or validate power rails. The interface is already defined and tested between Ezurio and Arducam, eliminating much of the usual early-stage debugging.

Enabling the Camera in Software

For full step-by-step instructions, refer to the

Quick Start Guide: Nitrogen95 SMARC Beta Evaluation Kit
.

Instead of manually modifying device trees, the required configuration is already provided as a device tree overlay.

From U-Boot, ensure the camera overlay is included:

setenv dtbos "imx95-nitrogen-smarc-dsi.dtbo imx95-nitrogen-smarc-nx611.dtbo imx95-nitrogen-smarc-csi0-pivariety.dtbo"
saveenv
reset

This enables the CSI camera interface with a known-good configuration without requiring a kernel rebuild.

Verifying Detection

Once the system boots, you can confirm the camera is detected successfully by running:

dmesg | grep -E '.*arducam.*'

Expected output:

[11.650954] arducam-pivariety 12-000c: sensor id: 0x0A56
[11.651249] arducam-pivariety 12-000c: firmware version: 0x0010

At this point:

  • Hardware connection is confirmed
  • Driver is loaded
  • The camera pipeline is present

Running the Camera

By default, the system boots into the Boot2Qt demo environment. Stop Weston and terminate QTLauncher to enable camera output:

killall weston
killall qtlauncher

Once the display is released, you can capture images and stream video using GStreamer with WaylandSink.

HD Streaming (1280 x 720)

gst-launch-1.0 libcamerasrc src::stream-role=still-capture ! 'video/x-raw,width=1280,height=720' ! waylandsink fullscreen=true

Capture an Image

gst-launch-1.0 libcamerasrc src::stream-role=still-capture ! 'video/x-raw,width=1280,height=720' ! identity sync=true ! jpegenc ! multifilesink location="hd.jpg"

The same workflow applies to Full HD and 4K resolutions. The key advantage is starting with a working pipeline rather than building one from scratch.

Why the Arducam xISP Module Helps on Nitrogen95

On many embedded platforms, camera integration issues arise around the ISP and image pipeline rather than the sensor itself.

The Arducam xISP module includes an external ISP already tuned for the sensor, allowing image processing to be handled directly on the camera module. This avoids the need for manual ISP tuning and delivers a stable image immediately.

On the Nitrogen95 platform, the module integrates cleanly with the libcamera and GStreamer pipeline.

Where the Partner Ecosystem Makes a Difference

Most time savings come from many smaller integration tasks already being solved.

With many platforms, camera bring-up involves troubleshooting CSI lane configuration, power sequencing, connector compatibility, device tree files, drivers, and media pipelines.

With the Nitrogen95 and Arducam combination:

  • Hardware compatibility is already validated
  • Device tree overlays are already provided
  • Driver compatibility is already tested
  • The media pipeline already works
  • Example GStreamer pipelines are already available

This allows developers to move directly into application development instead of spending days debugging camera integration.

Bottom Line

The advantage is not only that the camera works with the Nitrogen95 platform. The hardware interfaces are already validated, the BSP already includes camera support, and the image pipeline delivers usable output immediately.

Instead of spending time getting the camera operational, developers can focus on building their applications.

To learn more about Ezurio validated Arducam cameras, visit: https://www.ezurio.com/partners/technology/arducam

To learn more and order samples of the Nitrogen95 SMARC EVK, visit: https://www.ezurio.com/product/nitrogen95-i-mx95-evaluation-kit

Courtesy of Ezurio

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