I wanted to get into interfacing image sensors with an FPGA. Because I don't want to go full on hard mode I thought - why not try a low end image sensor (like 640 x 480 and lower)?
Because usually lower resolution also means no high speed interfaces like MIPI (with closed documentation) e.g. less pain during PCB routing, less wires (maybe even SPI) etc.
There are only few companies which produce such small / low res image sensors.
As for my investigation, most of them (maybe all of them) are located in China (such as GalaxyCore / BYD). There are maybe other "western" vendors I didn't stumble across (like Sony, but they likely won't release any datasheets).
Luckily, I was able to find data sheets for pretty much all GalaxyCore / BYD low end image sensors (e.g. those I am interested in) such that I would probably be able to get them running.
Now, my problem is I am not able to find any BYD image sensors anywhere to buy!? I found a few GalaxyCore ones but most of them are out of stock according to the seller.
I was able to buy 5 pieces of GC0307 and I plan to use them in an upcoming project. One week after I bought them (~ 2.5 weeks ago), this particular part already doubled in price. Is there some kind of image sensor / wafer shortage?
I even asked a seller on Alibaba for BYD parts only to never hear from him again after his initial reply. BYD has the BF3A01 which is a crazy small 1/15" image sensor (according to my calculations around 30x crop factor for you photographers out there
![Grin ;D](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xgrin.gif.pagespeed.ic.QVVz6XIT20.png)
)
Any recommendations / tips / tricks / information?