Infineon, the No. 1 automotive radar company, has created a different spark in the human-machine interaction between consumer and industrial

Power semiconductors and smart card ICs ranked first, and the automotive electronics market ranked second, which is Infineon's leading position. Infineon has four major business units, including the Automotive Electronics Division (ATV), accounting for 42%; Power Management & Diversified Markets (PMM) accounted for 31%, Industrial Power Control (IPC) accounted for 17%, and Smart Card & Security (CCS) accounted for 10%. As of September 2017, Infineon had 37,500 employees worldwide and revenues of €7,063 million in fiscal 2017.

At the 7th EEVIA China ICT Media Forum and 2018 Industry and Technology Outlook Symposium, Mak Zhengqi, Director of RF & Sensors Division of Infineon's Power Management & Diversified Markets Business Unit Greater China, highlighted the latest application status of Infineon's mmWave radar to the guests.

Millimeter-wave radar products are part of Infineon's Power Management and Diversified Markets Division, which mainly expands high-speed data, human-computer interaction, and energy efficiency, achieving outstanding data transmission capabilities through LNA/switches, base station SiC/GaN devices, leading high-performance MOSFETs and digital power ICs GaN/SiC devices, and realizing human-computer interaction through outstanding sensors and radar systems.

Infineon's sensor products are very rich, providing silicon-based microphones, pressure sensors, optical sensors, environmental sensors, etc., human-computer interaction to achieve 3D perception, Infineon has also launched 60GHz gesture sensors, 24GHz radar sensors, TOF time-of-flight sensors.

24GHz blind spot detection (BSD) applications are growing rapidly, and from the perspective of global 24GHz BSD demand trends, 24GHz BSD radar sensor shipments reached 218 million units in 2017, and the golden period of competitively priced BSD modules will come in 2021.

Infineon ranks first in the world in the market radar market, with more than 45 million sensor chip sales. Involved in multiple markets, from automotive to industrial.

For eyeballs, gesture capture, and 3D perception, millimeter-wave radar and software algorithms are used to achieve it, and millimeter-wave applications are quite widespread. However, there are also infrared, lidar, independent solutions, etc. on the market, using different technologies to correspond to different customized algorithms. As a high-frequency frequency band, millimeter wave is not 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.

Infineon has more than ten years of rich experience in millimeter-wave radar research and development, ranking first in the automotive radar market in the world. And from automotive to different applications in industry.

The radar sensor can output data such as speed, range, target distance, angle, target aspect, and target position. According to Mai Zhengqi's analysis, the radar system hardware includes transmitters, receivers and signal processing, and antennas are added on the back to convert electrical energy into electromagnetic waves. In addition, there are software algorithms and a GUI for interacting with the radar.

"You can see radar operating modes such as Doppler continuous wave (CW), FSK frequency shift keying, FMCW frequency modulation continuous wave, etc., which can detect a variety of different motions, speeds, distances and presence. When an application only needs to consider speed or motion, we can use a simple Doppler in the software part. If you want to detect the distance again, you must add FSK. If you want to know the presence of static objects, you must use FM continuous wave FMCW, so the focus is on application development. "As the algorithm increases, so does the complexity, which will be a challenge for the use of mmWave radar and a key focus of Infineon's current development.

All radars operate on specific channels ranging from 300 MHz to 300 GHz, such as 60 GHz and 24 GHz for industrial and industrial automation bands and 77 GHz for automobiles. The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength, and the higher the resolution and accuracy.

Infineon's 24GHz radar is used in indoor and outdoor lighting, monitoring, intelligent switchgear, drones, smart home appliances and other fields to achieve space and motion sensing, 6024GHz radar can realize object/material classification, smart home automation, operation switch through presence detection, etc., its vital sign sensing characteristics can detect stationary people, measurement is not affected by environmental conditions, and the antenna size is reduced by high frequency.

60GHz radar realizes human-machine interaction, can penetrate material transmission, bandwidth up to 7GHz, achieve sub-micron resolution, can recognize the slightest movement, in addition, use of short wavelength, antenna integration, system design miniaturization. Wearable devices, speakers, and contactless gesture control can present a good human-computer interaction experience.

Google's Project Soli project uses the 60GHz radar sensor provided by Infineon, which is 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 Light 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.