4D millimeter-wave radar with high resolution and low cost compared to lidar is becoming the new favorite of car companies. Starting in 2024, Huawei and NIO have announced the launch of intelligent driving solutions that replace lidar with millimeter-wave imaging radar. In this context, the market potential of millimeter-wave radar is being tapped at an accelerated pace.
Jiashu Chen, founder and CEO of Calterah Microelectronics
"It is estimated that by 2028, the number of front-mounted millimeter-wave radars in the Chinese market will exceed 60 million, with a compound growth rate of more than 20%; Worldwide, the total number of millimeter-wave radars will exceed 300 million. Chen Jiashu, founder and CEO of Calterah Microelectronics, said recently.
However, at the same time, the impact of the price war in the automotive industry has also been directly transmitted to upstream industry chain suppliers, and the field of millimeter-wave radar is no exception. How can chip suppliers represented by Calterah help millimeter-wave radar manufacturers establish cost advantages and win the market?
"Calterah has been committed to providing CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology with lower-cost, easy-to-use chip solutions for the mmWave radar industry." In this regard, Chen Jiashu introduced, "With the joint efforts of us and our customers, Calteran's products have entered more than 20 car companies and achieved more than 200 models. "As of the first quarter of 2024, Calterah has shipped more than 8 million millimeter-wave radar chips, more than 80% of which are used in the automotive front-end market.
Differentiate yourself with technology
Calterah is the first company in the domestic and global market to develop automotive-grade CMOS millimeter-wave radar chips. At the time of the establishment of Calteran, the mainstream technology route in the field of millimeter-wave radar was SiGe (silicon germanium semiconductor) process, compared with SiGe technology, CMOS technology has a higher degree of integration and obvious cost advantages, but at that time, the technology of using CMOS process to achieve ultra-high frequency millimeter wave was not mature, and there was not even a company that could produce it on a large scale at that time. Chen Jiashu, who is well versed in this technical advantage, firmly chose the development of CMOS millimeter-wave radar chips.
In 2017, Calterah, which has experienced numerous failures from R&D to testing, successfully mass-produced the world's first automotive-grade CMOS process 77/79 GHz millimeter-wave radar RF front-end chip. Compared with the previous SiGe millimeter-wave radar process, the successful application of the CMOS process has reduced the cost of Cartland by more than 50%. In 2019, Calterah took the lead in launching SoC chips with integrated radar signal processing baseband accelerators, and the highly integrated SoC chip product form greatly reduces the difficulty of radar module development, building Calterah's differentiated product advantages.
"We don't rely on squeezing our own gross margins, we mainly rely on technological breakthroughs. We are the first in the market to use silicon technology to do millimeter-wave radar SoC single-chip integration, and replace general-purpose processors with dedicated processors. At these levels, it makes us more cost-competitive. Chen Jiashu said.
Hendy Wu, Marketing Manager of Calterah Microelectronics
In an exclusive interview with Auto Watch, Wu Hengdi, marketing manager of Calterah Microelectronics, introduced that there are currently three generations of Cartland chip product layout: the first generation of millimeter-wave radar SoC chip series - Alps, which is mainly positioned in front radar and corner radar products for intelligent driving applications. Calterah has launched the Alps-Pro chip series based on the performance upgrade of Alps chips, which have the characteristics of higher performance, more reliable and more cost-effective. The Alps-Pro chip can cover L2/L2+ ADAS applications, and the high-performance corner radar based on Alps-Pro has covered the mainstream Tier1 and most OEMs in China. The second-generation product is the millimeter-wave radar SoC chip series - Andes, which is mainly positioned as high-performance 4D imaging millimeter-wave radar products. Andes SoCs support chip-to-chip flexible cascade, which can help downstream radar manufacturers quickly create imaging radar products with different performance by cascading different number of SoCs, thereby reducing bill of materials costs and simplifying the development process. "We have added all the high-performance features to its single chip, including a quad-core CPU processor, industry-leading DSP, powerful and comprehensive radar signal processing RSP, integrated Gigabit Ethernet interface, and support multi-chip cascade to form a larger MIMO array, making it an ultra-high-performance 4D imaging radar." Wu Hengdi said.
The third-generation product is the Kunlun automotive-grade millimeter-wave radar SoC platform, which is currently under development. The SoCs of the Kunlun platform are all integrated with RF and computing modules, and its RF modules have up to 6 transmitters and 6 receivers, far exceeding the common 2 transmitter and 3 receiver and 2 transmitter 4 receiver millimeter wave radar RF chips. The compute module includes a high-performance dual-core CPU, 1.8MiB of on-chip memory, and an RSP radar signal processor.
While maintaining excellent RF and computing power, it also has the advantages of a small package size of 13mm x 16mm and ultra-low power consumption, which can provide higher accuracy and greater stability spatial awareness for a variety of emerging applications. "The short-range radar products produced based on the Kunlun platform are mainly used in three fields: automatic door opening and closing obstacle avoidance radar, cabin life detection radar, and cost-effective corner radar solution." Wu Hengdi told "Car Watch".
Behind the products that are closer to the market demand is Gatland's solid R&D investment. At present, Calterah has more than 400 employees, of which nearly 80% are R&D personnel, and the talent pool of millimeter-wave radar is sufficient.
With a unique strategy, we will win the market
While having unique advantages in the field of technological innovation, Calterah has continuously adapted to the needs of the market and set up a product strategy that meets the needs of customers.
Taking the in-cabin radar solution as an example, the current market demand for automotive in-cabin radar is not only to detect whether there is a living body in the cabin, but also to identify whether the living person is an adult or a child. "When an adult is in the cabin, the radar does not need to alarm, but when the child is in the cabin, the radar needs to alarm. These functions still have relatively high requirements for computing power. Wu Hengdi explained.
To this end, Calterah has upgraded the main chip Rhine of the intelligent cockpit, which can accurately perceive the micro-movement of the human body, judge the position of personnel, and effectively eliminate interference outside the cabin. At the same time, it supports the child presence detection function, which can accurately detect the children in the cabin, and if the child is accidentally forgotten in the car, it will help the system to send an alarm reminder in time to make the intelligent cockpit safer.
In the current automotive market, many chip suppliers use the ADAS corner radar and front radar outside the vehicle directly in the cabin radar, resulting in redundant performance. "The corner radar outside the car, the front radar to see the target is at least 100 meters, the cabin radar actually only needs to see the distance of 3~5 meters, the redundancy of the ability in the distance is completely unnecessary, this part of the performance of the redundancy can actually be optimized." Wu Hengdi explained that in addition, in the past products, corner radar and front radar with redundant range performance, could not provide all-round coverage in terms of angle, which also caused the lack of product power of this solution.
In contrast, Calterah's short-range radar products produced specifically for the intelligent cockpit reduce the redundancy performance at the distance and enhance the angle resolution, which not only better meets the application needs of the cabin products, but also brings price optimization, killing two birds with one stone.
"Compared with competitors in the market, Kunlun radar products have a new product definition that is fully adapted to the application needs of short-range radar products. At present, the way for our competitors to reduce the cost in the field of cabin radar is to reduce the number of channels, which is not a successful way in our opinion, because the main engine factory pursues not only cost performance, but also some functional needs, such as distinguishing between adults and children, but the way to reduce the number of channels and reduce the cost of cabin radar cannot achieve these functions, so our products are unique in the market. Wu Hengdi concluded.
"We hope to increase the penetration rate of millimeter-wave radar and become the leading player in the field of millimeter-wave radar chips in China. We have been doing this in the past and will continue to do it in the future. Chen Jiashu proposed that in 2024, the annual shipment of Calterah chips is expected to reach 6 million, and the share of millimeter wave radar equipped with Calterah chips in the Chinese market will reach 20%, realizing the steady increase in market share in the Chinese market.