TowerJazz will Produce Radar Chip for DENSO

15 August, 2017

The process combines high performance SiGe transistors to handle the radar signals, together with 0.18um CMOS for thedigital control functions. Both companies targets the Automotive market

Towerjazz Automotive

The new Toyota Camry model that released this July in North America is equipped with a submillimeter-wave Semiconductor Radar chip that TowerJazz produced for DENSO,  a leading Japanese supplier of automotive technology, systems and components for world’s major carmakers. For the independent foundry TowerJazz from Migdal Haemek, Israel, this is a major event. The company announced that its 0.18um advanced SiGe technology was used to develop a 24-GHz rear and side radar sensor for DENSO Corporation.

DENSO’s rear and side radar sensor system offers SRR (short range radar) helps alert the driver of vehicles approaching from behind when changing lanes and when reversing. It also helps perform automatic braking when reversing. According to Global Market Insights, the global automotive radar market size is estimated to exceed $5 billion by 2023. The advent of self-driven cars is anticipated to drive industry growth over the forecast period.

The new Toyota Camry with Radar chip
The new Toyota Camry with Radar chip

DENSO chose TowerJazz’s SBC18 process as this technology combines high-performance SiGe transistors for the transmission and reception of the radar signal together with 0.18um CMOS for the integration of digital control functions on a single chip. Kazuma Natsume, Director of Advanced Safety Engineering Division in DENSO Corporation, said that TowerJazz’s advanced process enabled the engineers to fully achieve the challenging specs required for next generation short range radar (SRR) for automotive applications. “This solution allows DENSO to be a world leader in supplying collision avoidance systems for automotive safety.”

Promising Market on the Wheels

Both companies marked automotive market as a growth engine of the future. According to a market research published by MarketsandMarkets, the automotive semiconductor market is expected to increase from $35B in 2016 to over $48B by 2022. Automotive semiconductor content remains dominated by analog with a 69% share of the total market, while the RF semiconductor content expected to grow over the coming years with a double-digit CAGR. Those are exactly the core competent of TowerJazz, along with image and IR sensors – also needed for the Automotive safety systems.

DENSO itself does not stay still and is now in the process of building new capabilities:  Last week it announced the establishing of a new company, NSITEXE, Inc., to design and develop semiconductor IP cores for automated driving. The new company will develop a processor which can quickly and efficiently analyze large amounts of data from sensors and external communication to determine the optimal vehicle operation. The semiconductor IP cores optimized for in-vehicle applications will be licensed to in-vehicle microcomputer and SoC manufacturers.

In a complimentary move, is also joined the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium, established in cooperation with Ericsson, Intel Corporation, NTT, NTT DOCOMO and Toyota Motor Corporation. The objective of the consortium is to develop an ecosystem for connected cars to support emerging services such as intelligent driving, the creation of maps with real-time data and driving assistance based on cloud computing.

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Posted in: Automotive , Autonomous Car , News , Semiconductors

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