Radar for automotive : automated driving applications strengthens market dynamics
In the next few years, autonomous driving will become reality. To achieve this innovation, numerous technologies have been developed to provide functionalities and safety to drivers and passengers. Among the vision technologies, radar systems are the best-established and most secure technology. While both automotive segments, AD and ADAS safety follow different dynamics, both benefit from each other. ADAS is well-established in the automotive industry, with features like AEB becoming standard in 2018 for many middle-end cars from OEMs including Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, and Hyundai. Due to the complexity linked to environment perception (i.e. pedestrians crossing a street for instance), radar performance has been continuously improved for safety purposes, which has proven beneficial for the commercial AD market.
Today’s ADAS market is dominated by Continental, Bosch, Denso, and Hella. Meanwhile, the AD market has attracted new entrants and startups: Magna unveiled a 4D high-resolution module; Hitachi Automotive announced the smallest-ever long-range radar; Alps Electric’s ultra-short-range radar is featured in GM’s Cruise AD platform; and at least 15 startups are proposing novel approaches for high-resolution radar.
In 77GHz MMIC and chipsets the trend is towards higher integration, with market leaders NXP and Infineon Technologies creating integrated transceivers, and Texas Instruments even adding signal processing in its transceivers. The radar MMIC ecosystem is expected to move from an IDM to a fabless/foundry model, with volumes increasing and the technology transitioning to advanced technology nodes. The IDMs of yesterday could become the fabless of tomorrow.
At Yole Développement (Yole), analysts expect the radar market to reach US$8.6 billion by 2025, at a 2015 CAGR of 15.6%. Market growth depend on the specific radar frequency, explains the market research & strategy consulting company, Yole in its latest radar report: Radar and Wireless for Automotive: Market and Technology Trends 2019…
Recently System Plus Consulting released two dedicated reports: Automotive Radar Comparison 2018 and Ainstein K-77 Long Range Radar featuring Calterah CAL77A2T4R FOWLP Transceiver.
The comparative technology study provides insights on technology data for RF chipsets and antenna boards in radar systems. It includes the study of fifteen radar systems from several OEMs, including Continental, Veoneer, ZF, Valeo, Bosch, Aptiv, Denso and Ainstein. From its side, the Ainstein K-77 Long Range radar report is the latest one from the RF report collection. Released beginning of 2019, this reverse engineering and costing analysis presents the next-generation mid- & long-range, wideband and high-resolution radar sensor for ADAS based on RF CMOS technology using eWLB packaging… More info.