Recently, Zhengqi Mak, Director of the RF and Sensors Division in Greater China, Infineon's Power Management and Diversified Markets Business Unit, introduced the latest application status of Infineon's millimeter-wave radar.
Power semiconductors, smart card ICs ranked first, and the automotive electronics market ranked second, which is Infineon's leading position. Infineon has four business units, including the Automotive Electronics Division (ATV), which accounts for 42 percent; The Power Management & Diversified Markets (PMM) division accounted for 31%, the Industrial Power Control (IPC) division (IPC) accounted for 17%, and the Smart Card & Security (CCS) division accounted for 10%. As of September 2017, Infineon had 37,500 employees worldwide and generated revenues of EUR 7,063 million in fiscal 2017.
At the 7th EEVIA China ICT Media Forum and 2018 Industry and Technology Outlook Seminar, Zhengqi Mak, Director of Infineon's Power Management and Diversified Markets Business Unit RF & Sensors in Greater China, highlighted the latest application status of Infineon's millimeter wave radar.
Millimeter wave radar products in Infineon belong to the Power Management and Diversified Markets Division, which mainly expands the business of high-speed data, human-computer interaction and energy efficiency, through LNA/switch, base station SiC/GaN devices, to achieve outstanding data transmission capabilities, leading high-performance MOSFETs and digital power ICs GaN/SiC devices, through outstanding sensors and radar systems to achieve human-computer interaction.
Mai Zhengqi introduced, human-computer interaction can not be separated from sensors, Infineon's sensor products are very rich, can provide silicon-based microphones, pressure sensors, optical sensors, environmental sensors, etc., human-computer interaction to achieve 3D perception, Infineon also launched 60GHz gesture sensor, 24GHz radar sensor, TOF time-of-flight sensor.
24GHz blind spot detection (BSD) applications are growing rapidly, and from the global 24GHz BSD demand trend, 24GHz BSD radar sensor shipments reached 218 million in 2017, and the golden period of competitively priced BSD modules will arrive in 2021.
Infineon ranks first in the world in the radar market, with more than 45 million sensor chips sold. From automotive to industrial, in multiple markets.
For eyeball, gesture capture, and 3D perception, millimeter wave radar and software algorithms are used to achieve it, and millimeter wave applications are quite extensive. However, there are also infrared, lidar, stand-alone solutions, etc., using different technologies to correspond to different customized algorithms. As a high-frequency frequency band, millimeter wave has not been regulated and defined in detail by countries and regions. Therefore, the application prospects of millimeter-wave radar are good, but there are also many challenges.
With more than a decade of experience in the development and application of millimeter-wave radar, Infineon ranks first in the automotive radar market. And from the car to different applications of industry.
The radar sensor outputs data such as speed, range target distance, angle target aspect, and target position. Mai Zhengqi explained that the radar system hardware includes transmitters, receivers and signal processing, and an antenna is added on the back to convert electrical energy into electromagnetic waves. There are also software algorithms as well as GUIs for interacting with the radar.
"You can see radar operating modes such as Doppler continuous wave (CW), FSK frequency shift keying, FMCW FM continuous wave, etc., which can detect a variety of different motion, speed, distance and presence. When an application only needs to do speed or motion considerations, in the software part we can use simple Doppler. If you want to detect the distance again, you must add FSK. To know the presence of static objects, you must use FMCW FMCW, so the focus is on what is needed for application development. "As algorithms increase, so does complexity, which will be a challenge for the adoption of millimeter-wave radars and a focus of Infineon's current development.
All radars operate on specific channels in the range from 300 MHz to 300 GHz, such as 60GHz and 24GHz for industrial and industrial automation, and 77GHz for automotive. The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength, the higher the resolution and accuracy.
Infineon's 24GHz radar is used in indoor and outdoor lighting, monitoring, intelligent switching devices, drones, smart home appliances and other fields to achieve space and motion sensing, 6024GHz radar can realize object/material classification, smart home automation, manipulation switches through presence detection, etc., its vital signs sensing characteristics can detect stationary people, measurement is not affected by environmental conditions, using high frequency to reduce antenna size, etc.
The 60GHz radar enables human-machine interaction, penetrates material transmission, achieves sub-micron resolution with up to 7GHz bandwidth, and is able to recognize the slightest movements. In addition, the use of short wavelengths, antenna integration, and miniaturization of the system design. In wearable devices, speakers, and contactless gesture control, a better human-computer interaction experience can be presented.
Google's Project Soli uses Infineon's 60GHz radar sensor, a miniaturized sensor placed on a mobile phone or wearable device to detect gesture changes.
Mai Zhengqi said that in the Chinese market, Infineon's 24GHz millimeter wave radar solution has been widely used in security, blind spot detection, and smart home. Smart lighting street lamp DEMO cooperates with local third parties to control the brightness and switch of street lights through human motion detection. In Industry 4.0, there are more innovative applications of millimeter-wave radar in intelligent manufacturing, human-computer interaction and medical fields.