Lidar Sweepstakes Draws 15 RFQs, But No Frontrunner

More than a dozen RFQs for lidars are reportedly flying around. Evidently, lidars are beginning to penetrate the ADAS market. Automotive industry observers, however, caution not to expect a single lidar supplier to win this sweepstakes. (…)

“When we recently interviewed lidar companies, they told us that every OEM and Tier One has different requirements — demanding a specific field of view, distance and position to integrate lidars in a vehicle,” Pierrick Boulay, solid state lighting and lighting systems analyst at Yole Développement, told EE Times.

In this update, EE Times reviews the current and future market landscape for lidars, covering existing design wins and a few new companies, such as AEye and Opsys, aspiring to become key players.

Technology matrix

The best way to examine the technological variety in lidars is to draw a chart with two axes: one focused on imaging and another on ranging. Technologies used in imaging vary widely from mechanical, MEMS and optical-phased array to Flash. Ranging technologies include Pulse, FMCW (frequency-modulated continuous-wave) and phase shift.

Yole Développement mapped the lidar landscape in the accompanying chart by putting different players in different bins. The chart might not include everyone, as new players keep emerging, but this bird’s-eye view illustrates the diversity of technologies used in lidars… Full article