Although the development of intelligent driving cars is not so radical, the overall trend is still to continue to advance. It is predicted that by 2023, 43% of passenger cars will support L2+, which marks the number of radar sensors reaching more than 5.
At present, there are 24GHz and 77GHz radar sensors on the market, and the industry is more optimistic about the development potential of 77GHz. Steffen Spannagel, global vice president of NXP and general manager of the ADAS product line, quoted data that due to the rapid growth of 77GHz radar sensors, from 2021 to 2024, the automotive radar market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 18%, and the market size will reach $2.7 billion by 2024.
4D will become mainstream There are different trends in different use cases
In order to meet the needs of L2+ to L5 autonomous driving levels, traditional 3D millimeter wave radar has been somewhat "reluctant". To this end, the addition of a 4D imaging millimeter wave radar with pitch direction dimension information in the 3D millimeter wave radar has become a new battleground for many manufacturers with 360-degree body circumference perception and more refined ranging capabilities.
It is understood that compared with the traditional 3D millimeter wave radar, the vehicle 4D millimeter wave radar in the work, in addition to being able to calculate the distance, speed, horizontal angle information of the measured target, can also calculate the pitch angle information of the target, which can provide environmental information around the car. In addition, thanks to the ability to provide altitude information about the target, capturing the spatial coordinates and speed information of the target around the car, 4D millimeter wave radar can also provide more realistic path planning, passable space detection functions.
As a result, the industry is optimistic about the future potential of 4D imaging millimeter wave radar.
In 4D millimeter wave radar, it mainly includes market segments such as imaging radar, forward and backward long-range radar, and angle radar. The core devices mainly include MMIC and radar digital signal processors. MMIC can realize low-noise amplifiers, mixers, frequency modulation signal generators, power amplifiers and other functions, and radar digital signal processors can digitally process the intermediate frequency signals of millimeter-wave radar, which are divided into general-purpose digital processing chips and radar special processing chips.
With the strong growth of the radar market, the market segment is becoming more and more developed, and different use cases also put forward different requirements for semiconductor solutions.
Steffen Spannagel mentioned that a prominent example is the angle radar, which has higher integration requirements like the standard forward radar, so it is moving from the previous MMIC+ processor discrete chipset solution to an integrated single-chip solution.
"As a result, the segmentation of 4D imaging radar requirements requires deeper use case optimization, providing high flexibility and scalability." Steffen Spannagel further noted.
Combination of hard and soft offers a scalable portfolio
NXP, which has been deeply involved in the automotive millimeter wave radar market for many years, has carried out 6 generations of optimization and innovation, and continues to improve.
In addition to the mass production of NXP's industry's first dedicated 16nm imaging radar processor, the S32R45, which will begin its first use in customer volume production in the first half of 2022, NXP recently introduced the new radar processor, the S32R41, tailored for L2+ autonomous driving applications, to extend the benefits of 4D imaging radar to more vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that the S32R45 radar processor is the flagship product in NXP's 6th generation automotive radar chipset family. It facilitates higher levels of autonomous driving, supporting L2+ to demanding L5 level use cases where each car may require more than ten imaging radar sensors.
It is reported that the S32R41 and S32R45 can provide powerful computing power, supplemented by super-resolution radar software algorithms, which can achieve an angular resolution of less than 1 degree after being combined with the NXP TEF82xx RFCMOS transceiver, while applying advanced MIMO waveform design to support up to 192 virtual antenna channels to work simultaneously to achieve broader and more accurate sensing.
"This helps enable higher levels of autonomous driving, supporting L2+ to demanding L5 level use cases, extending the benefits of 4D imaging millimeter-wave radar to more cars." Steffen Spannagel stressed.
It is worth mentioning that in order to meet the needs of different use cases of 4D millimeter wave radar, the S32R4X platform provides a common architecture to achieve software reuse and rapid expansion and migration, while also providing a high-performance hardware security engine that supports OTA updates and complies with new information security standards.
With cutting-edge technology nodes, advanced 77GHz RFCMOS performance, excellent hardware architecture and leading proprietary algorithms, NXP has become a trusted partner for automotive manufacturers, Tier 1 suppliers and ecosystem enterprises.
Steffen Spannagel finally stressed that NXP will continue to expand in-depth cooperation with upstream and downstream industry chains to enhance the application value of 4D millimeter wave radar in L2+ and above autonomous vehicles. NXP will strengthen joint innovation with automakers to jointly develop roadmaps and future architectures, conduct application-level in-depth cooperation and support with Tier 1 suppliers to help customers accelerate time to market, and collaborate with ecosystem enterprises to continuously simplify and accelerate technology applications at the level of hardware and software tools. (Proofreader | Li Yan)