Semiconductor manufacturer Calterah has released two new mmWave radar chip products, the Rhine-Mini and Alps-Mini, both of which use an IC integrated with an FMCW radar RF front-end transceiver system, which includes a dual-channel transmitter and a dual-channel receiver.
The receiver is capable of operation in the 59–64GHz band (for Rhine-Mini) or the 76–81GHz band (for Alps-Mini), with a 4GHz continuous sweep and an output power up to 12dBm. The chip also supports a maximum ADC sampling rate of 25 MS/s, peak search, and several algorithms to implement CFAR detection with a 512 KiB baseband SRAM. As an automotive grade product, it meets the requirements of the AEC-Q100 qualification and ISO 26262 ASIL-B standard, with two packages available, standard package and AiP (antenna in package).
While similar to the company’s regular Alps and Rhine units, the Mini range is upgraded with a dual-core processor and a cybersecurity unit for encryption and compliance with cybersecurity standards. Furthermore, compared with Alps and Rhine, Mini is 40% smaller in size with a typical power consumption of 0.8W and a 20% reduction in the cost of the chip.