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 depends on the specific radar frequency, explains the market research & strategy consulting company, “24 GHz radar held a large part of the 2018 market with US$2.2 billion and will grow slightly until 2020 for features like blind spot monitoring before being replaced by 79 GHz high-resolution short-range radar that enables mapping of the entire car’s surroundings”, comments Cédric Malaquin Technology & Market Analyst, RF Devices & Technology at Yole. Many players including Veoneer, Aptiv, Hella are also transitioning to 77 GHz radar for short and middle-range sensing.

Autonomous driving will become reality in the next few years. Among the vision technologies, radar systems are the most established and secure. 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. Today’s ADAS market is dominated by Continental, Bosch, Denso, and Hella. Meanwhile, the autonomous driving 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.  

Yole’s most recent report reveals the status of radar technologies and their applications. Yole Group of companies including Yole Développement (Yole) and System Plus Consulting are together following the radar technologies for automotive applications. Based on a strong synergy between their activities, both partners propose a wide collection of RF electronics technology & market analyses and comparison reports. 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.

“The K-77 is built on RF CMOS Technology from Calterah featuring two transmitters and four receivers designed for low power consumption and unit cost,” explains Stéphane Elisabeth, PhD. Expert Cost Analyst at System Plus Consulting. And he adds: “The chipset allows cascading in order to increase the number of receiving and transmitting paths. Using eWLB packaging reduces parasitic signals, making this new chipset compact and powerful. Both MMICs are soldered on an asymmetric PCB with a hybrid PTFE/FR4 substrate.”