“Revolutionizing Technology: The Impact of Sensors”
Title: Texas Instruments’ Groundbreaking mm-Wave Sensors Poised to Revolutionize Autonomous Driving
About ten years ago, researchers at Texas Instruments (TI) started working on a project that culminated last month with the release of millimeter wave (mm-wave) single-chip CMOS sensors. These innovative sensors are expected to play a significant role in automotive applications that weren’t even considered a decade ago.
The AWR1x 76-81GHz family of sensors offers up to three times more accurate sensing compared to existing mm-wave products. This is achieved by combining cutting-edge analog design with digital signal processing on a single silicon chip.
“We’re incredibly excited about this,” said senior vice president Greg Delagi. “We’ve invested heavily in innovation over the past ten years, and now we can finally bring it to market.”
Delagi highlighted that TI has the infrastructure to ensure a steady supply of these sensors for the next five, ten, or even fifteen years, which is crucial for many long-term autonomous driving projects. These devices have already been tested by car makers and tier-one suppliers and are now in mass production. Delagi is confident they will be integrated into driver assistance systems by the end of this year or early next year.
The primary focus, however, is on the autonomous driving market, with some predicting up to ten million self-driving cars on the road by 2020. “Some may debate the exact numbers or timeline, but it’s happening,” Delagi said. “Electronics are playing an increasingly vital role in the journey towards self-driving cars.”
For this to become a reality, numerous factors need to be accurately sensed, including range, velocity, and angles. “You might need to sense through various materials without any disruption, and think about challenging environments—fog, darkness, rain. These are tough on sensor technology, but we strongly believe mm-wave is the only robust sensor technology that can handle all these challenges,” he added.
Previously, implementing mm-wave sensing required multiple chips for the transmitter, receiver, amplifier, ADC, DAC, and the processor. This led to issues with accuracy, size, power consumption, and complexity. “Our breakthrough combines all these elements into one chip,” Delagi explained. “We’ve created the smallest, most sensitive mm-wave sensor using CMOS technology, a high-volume semiconductor industry staple. It took us years to perfect these chip designs.”
He emphasized the sensor’s impressive accuracy, capable of detecting details as small as a human hair’s width. “Consider the applications that level of accuracy enables,” he said.
Power consumption is also a key factor, with the sensor using just a quarter of the power of other products, down to 150mW. This efficiency results in a smaller overall size, with the full sensor measuring just 25 by 25mm and the chip itself at 10.4 by 10.4mm.
“We didn’t just want to release a chip; we aimed to create a family of products for various markets. We made it easy for engineers to access this technology by providing development boards, software, and documentation,” Delagi said.
Sameer Wasson, a general manager at TI, added, “We’ve put a lot of effort into helping professionals start sensing out of the box in 30 minutes or less.”
There are versions of these sensors for both industrial and automotive sectors. The automotive versions are designed with the ISO 26262 functional safety standard in mind, targeting Asil B level, and include automotive-specific interfaces. The automotive range includes the AWR1243, which requires an external processor to function.
