Under the trend of electrification, the value of automotive electronics in the whole vehicle continues to increase.
Text/Shanshan Xu
In the automotive semiconductor sector, there are several companies whose names you will certainly not be unfamiliar with: Infineon, NXP, Renesas, TI and STMicroelectronics.
According to statistics released by market research institute Strategy Analytics, the total output value of the global automotive semiconductor industry in 2020 is about 35 billion US dollars, and the above five companies together account for nearly 50% of the global market share, of which Infineon has the highest 13.2%.
Step on the energy efficiency revolution
Infineon, the world's largest supplier of automotive semiconductors, also appeared at this year's CES as scheduled and exhibited one of its new carbon dioxide (CO2) sensors, the Xensiv PAS.
According to comprehensive foreign media reports, XENSIV PAS CO2 sensors have characteristics such as high performance and small size, and are based on photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) technology to monitor CO2 content by tracking environmental data.
Infineon said it plans to incorporate it into a variety of applications, including but not limited to air conditioners, networked speakers or for room air detection.
Although Infineon did not elaborate on the specific application of this product in automobiles this time, in the context of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutrality", accurate measurement of carbon emissions will become an inevitable trend.
In addition, the goal of this energy revolution also requires cars to save electricity and improve energy efficiency. As a leader in the power semiconductor industry, Infineon is expected to bring even greater surprises to the industry.
Stamp size "evaluation" millimeter wave sensor
In addition to Infineon's new products, Texas Instruments (TI) is not to be outdone, and launched the second generation of short-range and long-range millimeter wave radar sensors SoC , the AWR294x series – at this year's exhibition.
Foreign media Electronic Design quoted TI as saying that the new generation of SoCs is 33% higher in resolution and 40% more applicable distance than other solutions on the market.
"For this product, TI outperforms its competitors such as NXP, Infineon and Analog."
In terms of appearance, this chip product abandons the usual bulky design, using a 45-nanometer RFCMOS process, flip chip BGA (FCBGA) packaging technology, and integrates various components such as RF transceivers, CPUs, DSPs and hardware accelerators on a soC the size of only one stamp.
At the same time, the AWR294x is ASIL-B compliant and can withstand extreme operating temperatures from –40°C to 140°C with built-in monitoring. It is said to introduce more redundancy for L2 or higher level of autonomous driving ADAS, such as emergency braking (AEB) or lane change assist.
It is worth mentioning that users can reprogram the CPU, DSP and hardware accelerators of this radar chip to meet their own usage needs. In addition to short-range, long-range applications, the AWR294x can also be configured as a medium-range radar.
According to TI's official website, the AWR294x is not currently in production, but it has been confirmed that it will be listed at $23.95 per unit.
In the competitive and heating radar market, can TI occupy the high ground with this "affordable" product?