NXP Wins Prestigious Automotive Innovation Award with Radar
February 15 2017 - 6:30PM
At the 2017 Automotive Innovation Awards held in Den Haag this
week, NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ:NXPI), the world’s largest
supplier of automotive semiconductor solutions, was awarded the
esteemed prize for the best Dutch innovation in the automotive
branch.
NXP was selected for the award in the Technology category with
its Radar chip - the TEF810X. The chip uses RFCMOS technology for
ultra-compact system design. Invented and designed in Eindhoven in
cooperation with teams in Bangalore and Hamburg, it has been used
in field tests with Google self-driving cars, and in radar
specialist Hella’s automotive CompactRadar solution.
Improving Road SafetyCars are equipped with an
increasing number of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)
based on a variety of sensors, such as radar, to increase the
safety of drivers and passengers. To use this technology on a large
scale requires affordable, compact and reliable sensors; the
TEF810X is the heart of such radar sensors. They are used in Active
Safety functions, such as Adaptive Cruise Control, Blind Spot
Monitoring and Autonomous Emergency Braking. Self-driving cars are
expected to use a radar cocoon setup with multiple sensors around
the car to allow for a 360-degree view.
Enabling Radar Sensors the Size of a Postage
StampThe radar chip integrates four essential functions of
a radar sensor: it generates, transmits, receives, and digitizes
radar signals. In order to achieve a high-resolution performance,
for example to “see” pedestrians, the signals need to be very high
frequency (76-81GHz). Before this innovation, three to four
different chips were required to perform these functions, resulting
in a rather bulky setup. NXP’s development team was able to address
this challenge because of its key competency in designing radio
frequency systems on silicon (40nm RFCMOS).
This high degree of integration makes it possible to reduce the
size of radar sensors by 50 percent, from the size of a deck of
cards to the size of a postage stamp and to simplify them. Instead
of combining three to four chips on a printed circuit board,
manufacturers of sensors can now use one chip. Energy consumption
also decreases, as the connections between the functions are no
longer made through the printed circuit board, but are integrated
into the chip. This makes the sensor hardware much more
streamlined, allowing for flexible integration of multiple sensors
in future cars. In addition, all of these factors contribute
reduced cost per sensor, thus making radar sensors affordable for
all cars.
The radar chip is expected to have a major societal impact
because of its promise in improved traffic safety. The European New
Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) has researched the effect of
Autonomous Emergency Braking, concluding that it can reduce the
number of rear-end collisions by 38 percent. In its requirements
for 2020, the NCAP places emphasis on vulnerable road users, such
as pedestrians and cyclists. Radar sensors equipped with the NXP
Radar chip have the right level of performance to make these road
users perfectly visible.
“About 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year. We
believe that Radar can play a key role in reducing that figure
significantly, making global roads much safer than today,” said
Kurt Sievers, executive vice president and general manager
Automotive at NXP Semiconductors. “This is why we invest a great
effort and passion in making the technology better, smaller, and
more affordable. With around 400 automotive companies in the
Netherlands, the automotive industry is a sizable one, and winning
the Automotive Innovation Award is a great honor for us.”
The use of more Radars per car also increases the safety of road
users in and around the car. Trucks will also be increasingly
equipped with radar sensors, thus eliminating the notorious ‘blind
spot’, which is now often the cause of accidents with pedestrians
and cyclists. Increased safety also has secondary advantages:
traffic jams are often the result of road accidents. Fewer road
accidents will therefore have a positive effect on the flow of
traffic.
The TEF810X RFCMOS Radar Transceiver is scheduled to go into
production in early 2018. For more information on the solution,
please visit: www.nxp.com/radar.
About NXP SemiconductorsNXP Semiconductors N.V.
(NASDAQ:NXPI) enables secure connections and infrastructure for a
smarter world, advancing solutions that make lives easier, better
and safer. As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for
embedded applications, NXP is driving innovation in the secure
connected vehicle, end-to-end security & privacy and smart
connected solutions markets. Built on more than 60 years of
combined experience and expertise, the company has 31,000 employees
in more than 33 countries and posted revenue of $9.5 billion in
2016. Find out more at www.nxp.com.
For further information, please contact:
Europe / U.S.
Birgit Ahlborn
Tel: +49 170 57 46 124
Email: birgit.ahlborn@nxp.com
Greater China / Asia
Esther Chang
Tel: +886 2 8170 9990
Email: esther.chang@nxp.com
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