Automotive radar transceivers offer high accuracy and low power consumption

Renesas Electronics Corporation enters the automotive radar market with the release of a 4x4-channel, 76-81GHz transceiver developed to satisfy the demanding needs of ADAS and Level 3 and higher autonomous driving applications. Using automotive expertise accumulated through many years of global customer engagements, the company will include the new RAA270205 high-definition radar transceiver into its increasing sensor fusion portfolio, which combines radar, vision systems, and other sensing modalities.

Created together with Steradian Semiconductors Private Limited, which the company acquired this year, the device featured at electronica 2022. The new transceiver MMIC is particularly ideal for imaging radar, long-range forward-looking radar and 4D radar, but can also be employed for corner and central-processing radar architectures, the so-called 'satellite' automotive radar systems. Furnished with 4Tx and 4Rx channels, the device supports up to 16 MIMO channels. It can be cascaded to allow higher channel count and greater radar resolution.

The device provides best-in-class accuracy with up to 5GHz of bandwidth, and a 112.5MSPS ADC sampling rate that is nearly three times faster than competing devices. Power consumption of 1.2W is 50% lower than similar transceivers and it provides a noise figure of 9dB, which is 3dB lower than other radar transceivers. Its superior chirp rate of up to 300MHz/µs enhances radar resolution and object detection.

“Today’s radar transceiver MMICs must achieve higher definition to support the high-accuracy requirements of ADAS and autonomous driving safety platforms,” said Vivek Bhan, senior vice president and deputy general manager of Renesas’ Automotive Solution Business Unit. “Working in close collaboration with Steradian, which brings deep radar design expertise, we are expanding our sensor fusion offerings with a focus on functional safety and low power consumption to help our customers lower their development costs and improve time to market.”