The EMI, Thermal Mitigation, and Dense Design Challenges Lying Ahead
for Automotive Component Suppliers

With ADAS radar frequencies tripling to 77 GHz from 24 GHz, automotive design engineers immediately understand that an immediate and optimal response to emerging technological trends is mandatory. Higher data rate, reduced package size, and demands for greater functionality are trend lines here to stay. All affect decision-making. All contribute to an ever-growing list of energy management issues including higher frequency EMI, near field EMI, and greater thermal density. Heat and EMI are increasingly interrelated. Examine what you can do to correctly predict system performance with the help of computer modeling. It can lead to correct choices or even space-saving multifunctional EMI and thermal protective materials now answering the call for help. Planners need correct answers because the data rate of digital signals translates directly to the frequency of EMI radiation. Are you addressing EMI and heat as interrelated challenges?

Anechoic chambers are necessary for many of the tests involved in automotive EMC testing. We will be looking into what is needed in today’s automotive EMC Chamber and discussing Shielding Effectiveness, how to properly size a chamber, 40 GHz performance, and other topics that could affect accreditation. Elements sometimes overlooked will also be identified, such as fire detection & suppression and door maintenance.

Radar modules used in new automobiles have seen many advances at the chip level, board level, and signal processing level. Newer modules face multiple challenges related to increasing point cloud density, prevent on-module and inter-module interference, and coexistence with other wireless protocols, particularly as 5G rollouts get pushed into higher frequencies. This presentation will review recent advances in automotive radar design with an eye towards EMI suppression, as well as advances in other design aspects that have helped increase accuracy in these systems. Finally, some newer design paradigms will be presented with an eye towards EMI suppression in car radar modules.