Gasgoo Awards 2023 applicant: Calterah Alps-Pro CAL77S344-AE mmWave radar SoC from Calterah Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

Product: Calterah Alps-Pro CAL77S344-AE mmWave radar SoC 

Description

As the new auto-grade 4T4R 77 GHz mmWave radar SoC based on Calterah’s Alps platform, Alps-Pro (CAL77S344-AE) integrates a complete radar system that includes an FMCW front-end transceiver operating in the 76–81 GHz frequency band, a Baseband Accelerator (BBA), a multi-core CPU, etc., boasting excellent performance of the analog front end and exceptionally high computing power for radar signal processing. Therefore, Alps-Pro perfectly fulfills the requirements of corner radar and forward-looking radar in L2+ autonomous driving.

Unique advantages

1. Powerful Performance: Based on Calterah’s Alps platform, Alps-Pro boasts higher accuracy of the phase shifter, a greater RF link budget, and greater channel-to-channel isolation in the RF analog front-end, achieving an industry-leading performance and currently the lowest system power consumption. The BBA supports a more efficient DDM-MIMO signal processing flow and integrates powerful engines such as CFAR with coherent combination, Spatial Variant Apodization (SVA), etc. The Alps-Pro device also provides a 100 Mbps Ethernet interface that supports outputting a large amount of point cloud information. 2. Optimal Cost-Efficiency: Based on the standard CMOS process technology, Alps-Pro features low cost and scalability for mass production and boasts currently the smallest die size among products of the same specifications. 3. Safety and Robustness: Alps-Pro meets the requirements of AEC-Q100 qualification and ISO 26262 ASIL-B standard. To ensure cybersecurity, it provides a Hardware Security Module (HSM) supporting various symmetric and asymmetric encryption and decryption algorithms, HASH algorithms, and true random number generator. Moreover, it supports excellent functions such as interference detection in radar signals and out-of-band spur attenuation, capable of meeting the requirements of various new regulations. 4. Easy Development: Apart from integrating a whole radar system, Alps-Pro comes with development software compliant with ISO 26262 ASIL-B and ASPICE standards and supports debugging of various functions, which can simplify user development and shorten the time to market substantially.

Application

Developed based on Alps-Pro, corner radar and forward-looking radar support detection ranges of 180 m and 240 m and resolution of 4° and 3°, respectively, with ±0.1° azimuth accuracy, perfectly meeting the requirements of L2+ autonomous driving. mmWave radar is widely applied in Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), featuring long detection distances and strong penetrability of signals since they have low atmospheric attenuation and loss in transmission, and thus it can offset the drawbacks of cameras and LiDAR.

Prospect

On top of traditional radar functions, 4D mmWave radar is capable of height measurement, enabling object detection with improved accuracy and resolution and output of more point cloud information. As the penetration rate of smart driving in new energy vehicles (NEVs) continues to rise, the cost-efficient advantage of mmWave radar becomes increasingly prominent. Alps-Pro will help to bring down the cost of mmWave radar modules, making autonomous driving more accessible to everyone. This radar technology will better serve L3/L3+ autonomous driving with its excellent detection performance in the future.