imec, a Belgian research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, recently announced the world’s first CMOS 140GHz radar-on-chip system with integrated antennas in standard 28nm technology. This new technology is an important step in the development of radar-based sensors for a number of smart intuitive applications – such as building security, remote health monitoring of car drivers, breathing and heart rate of patients, and gesture recognition for man-machine interaction.
“With our prototype radar, we have demonstrated all critical specs for radar technology in 28nm standard CMOS technology,” said Wim Van Thillo, IoT program director at imec. “We are well advanced in incorporating multiple antenna paths in our most recent generation solution, which will enable a fine angular resolution of 1.5cm in a complete MIMO radar form factor of only a few square centimeters. We expect this prototype in the lab by the end of 2018, at which point our partners can start building their application demonstrators. First applications are expected to be person detection and classification for smart buildings, remote car driver vital signs monitoring (as cars evolve towards self-driving vehicles), and gesture recognition for intuitive man-machine interactions. Plenty more innovations will be enabled by this technology, once app developers start working with it.”
The imec 140GHz radar open innovation R&D collaborative program has been endorsed by Panasonic, and imec invites potential interested parties to join. Imec currently collaborates with the cities of Antwerp and Flanders on the ‘City of Things’ project that uses IoT technology to turn the cities into living labs as well as a real-time open data platforms.
