Electronic Products looks back at the top 10 products of 2022. Three of the most popular components are designed for automotive applications. These include power ICs that address power management in electric vehicles (EVs), and radar processors and SoCs that target autonomous driving (AD). Other top products address design complexity like the wireless SoC for satellite IoT and the AI SoC for edge AI vision and sensor fusion, as well as space and power savings, including a MEMS accelerometer, a SiC MOSFET, and image sensors.
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Over the past year there has been a lot of discussion around automotive safety features, particularly for automated driving, along with moves into software-defined vehicles and new architectures that require new processing and imaging technologies. The automotive industry also is making big investments in electrification.
This means automotive designers are looking for ways to simplify their designs and improve performance, and component manufacturers delivered in 2022. The top automotive products, based on our readers, include power ICs, a 4D imaging radar processor, and an SoC for automated driving.
The new power ICs, including buck converters and a low-dropout (LDO) linear regulator, target power management design challenges for EVs and industrial systems, including lowering electromagnetic interference (EMI) and reducing filter size. The buck converters integrate three capacitors – two input bypass capacitors and one boot capacitor – in a small QFN package, saving space while enabling a much smaller EMI passive filter. It also reduces internal inductance.
One of the new radar processors extends 4D imaging into a wide range of corner and front sensors and is tailored for the L2+ segment. With the new radar chip, the L2+ segment will be able to leverage 4D imaging radar sensing with up to six corner, front, and rear radar sensors in 360-degree surround sensing. IDTechEx reported that passenger vehicles began shipping with next-generation 4D imaging radars in early 2022, delivering a 16× increase in resolution compared with the previous generation of radars. The market researcher said “4D imaging sensors are a big step in enabling higher-performing autonomous features for consumer vehicles.”
The new SoC for central processing in advanced driver-assistance (ADAS) and AD solutions, also target Level 2+ as well as Level 3 automated driving. It claims deep learning performance of up to 34 tera operations per second (TOPS), which enables high-speed image recognition and processing of surrounding objects by automotive cameras, radar, and LiDAR. The SoC delivers a high level of integration, reducing hardware and software development efforts and design complexity. It also is expected to help enable the development of the software-defined vehicle.
Components targeting wireless technology and IoT also garnered some top views, including a wireless SoC for satellite IoT and an edge AI SoC evaluation kit for vision and sensor fusion. The wireless SoC, claimed as the first wireless SoC solution for direct-to-satellite IoT, addresses challenges around complexity, power consumption, price, and size. It integrates all required system functions for satellite IoT connectivity in a small 68-QFN package.
The edge AI evaluation kit for AI vision and sensor fusion IoT applications delivers vision-, motion-, and sound-detection hardware and software with wired and wireless connectivity. At the heart of the AI eval kit is the low-power SoC with an advanced neural network engine, in combination with multiple sensors, software, and wireless connectivity. The kit targets edge AI for the IoT, including smart-home, building, industrial, and monitoring applications.
Two FPGA products also were of interest to our readers, including a RISC-V SoC FPGA and a Xilinx FPGA development platform. The RISC-V-based SoC FPGA delivers a smaller thermal footprint for low-power smart embedded vision applications as well as automotive, industrial automation, communications, defense, and IoT systems. These devices enable highly integrated designs with improved power and thermal efficiency, reducing cost and design complexity.
The FPGA development platform enables system integrators to build fully operational proof-of-concepts for a range of markets including industrial automation, machine vision, health-care sciences, networking and communication, test and measurement, broadcast, consumer, transportation, and AI-enabled applications.
Other popular products include image sensors with ultra-small pixel technology that does not compromise quantum efficiency (QE) and quad phase detection (QPD) autofocus performance, while delivering low power consumption; a 650-V silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET that offers a 60% smaller footprint, along with better thermal performance, lower package inductance, lower gate noise, and lower switching losses, which translate into improvements in efficiency and power density, and a three-axis MEMS accelerometer that improves power consumption by two times versus a previous generation device.
The top 10 products are based on the highest page views in 2022, solely looking at new product introductions launched during the year. Here are the top 10 most popular products.
TI unveils new buck converters and LDO linear regulator at APEC
TI introduced two new buck converters and an LDO linear regulator at APEC 2022 that address design challenges for automotive and industrial systems.
Microchip RISC-V-based SoC FPGAs get production qualification
Microchip marks a milestone with the first RISC-V-based PolarFire SoC FPGAs that are qualified for production.
Orca Systems unveils wireless SoC for satellite IoT
Orca Systems partnered with Totum Labs to develop a highly integrated wireless SoC to deliver satellite IoT connectivity over Totum’s LEO network
Xilinx Artix UltraScale+ FPGA development platform released
Opal Kelly has announced the XEM8320 FPGA development platform for Xilinx’s Artix UltraScale+ FPGA with its FrontPanel SDK and SYZYGY connectivity.
Omnivision claims pixel technology breakthrough for image sensors
Omnivision has claimed a pixel technology breakthrough with the development of the smallest 0.56-µm pixel without compromising QE and QPD autofocus performance.
NXP unveils 4D imaging radar processor for L2+ autonomy
NXP has announced the production ramp-up of its flagship 4D imaging radar processor along with the launch of its 16-nm imaging radar chip for L2+ at CES 2022.
Renesas unveils next-generation R-Car SoC for ADAS and AD
Renesas has launched its next-generation R-Car SoC, the V4H, to support automated driving Level 2+/3 and software-defined car features.
Onsemi claims first TOLL-packaged 650-V SiC MOSFET
Onsemi’s TOLL-packaged 650-V SiC MOSFET offers a 60% smaller footprint compared with the standard D2PAK 7-lead package.
Edge AI evaluation kit targets vision and sensor fusion for the IoT
Synaptics has launched the Katana Edge AI evaluation kit to help designers develop AI vision and sensor fusion applications for the IoT.
MEMS accelerometer reduces power consumption
ADI’s three-axis MEMS accelerometer improves power consumption by two times versus a previous generation device.
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