Reliable and high-performance radar module is the key to improve the automatic driving assistance system and realize full automatic driving in the future. Cars need to carry more and higher performance radar modules to achieve many new functions, such as the Advanced Automatic Emergency Braking System (AEB), which can quickly respond to motorcyclists crossing the road. At present, the series of projects and legislation being carried out by the European New Car Safety Assessment Association (NCAP) is one of the important driving forces to promote the growth of the radar module market.
Infineon Technology Co., Ltd. has been leading the radar module market for more than 15 years, and is a top 1 manufacturer of radar monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). Infineon pioneered transceiver integration (integrating transmitter and receiver into the same chip), and launched the world's first 77 GHz automotive millimeter wave radar chip based on SiGe technology in 2009. In addition, Infineon also has a wide product portfolio, which can cover a complete product segment from short-range radar (angle radar) to high-end forward radar.
Recently, Infineon released a new generation of innovative radar product, the RASIC CTRX8181 transceiver, which is also the first product of the new 76 GHz to 81 GHz radar MMIC series developed with 28 nanometer CMOS technology. The product has higher signal to noise ratio and linearity, which can improve system performance and design flexibility. At the same time, this radar transceiver is easy to use, can simultaneously provide a scalable platform for different sensors such as angle radar, forward radar and short-range radar, and can bring flexibility to the new software defined vehicle architecture. Customers can use this radar transceiver to develop 77 GHz vehicle millimeter wave radar applications at a lower cost.
Tomas Lucia, Marketing Director of Radar MMIC Products of Infineon Automotive Electronics Business Unit, said: "The new generation CTRX8181 transceiver can accurately classify and detect objects, which is a necessary function to protect vulnerable groups such as motorcyclists, cyclists or pedestrians in road safety. In addition, this product also improves RF performance, which can help deploy all SAE level (up to L4 level) Reliable auxiliary driving and automatic driving functions. "
CTRX8181 is a new product developed by Infineon based on the latest ISO26262 functional safety standard, with 4 transmitting channels and 4 receiving channels. The device has excellent signal to noise ratio (SNR), and the sensing range of the standard module is increased by 25% (for example, from 250 meters to more than 300 meters). With more RF channels and higher linearity, the vertical resolution and angular resolution of the product have been improved by 33%, which can better classify different objects, such as accurately identifying pedestrians beside cars. Based on the above characteristics of the product, customers can develop radar modules applicable to all applications (from angle radar to high-resolution radar, etc.).
On chip digital phase-locked loop (PLL) supports fast and stable frequency slope, which can obtain higher range resolution and ultra fast return time. Compared with the best solution on the market, the response speed is improved by 4 times. This new feature not only reduces the power consumption, but also enables more accurate classification of objects with similar speed. On chip digital phase-locked loop can realize the frequency ramp that can be flexibly modulated without affecting the phase noise, so that the radar is stable and reliable in various application scenarios. Therefore, it is suitable for schemes with large frequency interference such as electronic compass.
New CTRX product series and Infineon AURIX ™ Microcontroller (MCU) TC3x and the upcoming TC4x radar specific products are a perfect match. TC3x and TC4x both integrate signal processing unit (SPU) and non-volatile memory for on-chip program code storage. And AURIX ™ The combination of chipsets can enable CTRX to play its best performance in future NCAP (new car crash test) and actual road conditions, such as improving the reliability of radar in severe weather conditions.
Through system partitioning, manufacturers can flexibly provide traditional solutions with complete radar processing capabilities, or adopt different architectures, such as 100 Mbit/s or 1 Gbit/s Ethernet to achieve data stream preprocessing with extremely low power consumption. The system partition also supports the selection of appropriate MMICs and microcontrollers for the target application, so that it can be easily expanded to meet various cost and performance requirements. The connection with MCU through LVDS or CSI-2 can help manufacturers to combine devices more flexibly.
