Silicon set to displace gallium arsenide in automotive radar

LONDON — Market forecaster Strategy Analytics has said the market for RF millimeter-wave components will grow at a CAAGR of 44 percent through 2012. While GaAs technology will still be the market-leading technology at that point but mainly due to legacy reasons. All the major tier one automotive systems companies are moving to silicon technologies for their next-generation radar platforms, Strategy Analytics said.

From 2009 to 2012, GaAs technology will be supplanted by CMOS and SiGe technologies for use in both long-range and short-range automotive radar systems, according Silicon Analytics. Silicon-based process technologies coul dominate this market from 2013 onwards. Strategy Analytics predicted that the CMOS and SiGe-based automotive radar systems would account for between 20 and 40 percent of the market during the period from 2009 to 2012.

"Nearly all the major radar manufacturers are hoping to use SiGe in their 'next generation' of system designs," said Asif Anwar, director of Strategy Analytics GaAs service, in a statement. "It is not a case of a gradually increasing penetration however, but a series of discreet step increases aligned around three- to four-year product design cycles. We'll see 20 to 40 percent penetration over the 2009-2012 time-frame and then another potential shift beginning in 2013."