Solid-state lidar factory opens in California
The facility uses semiconductor photonic IC processing tools and a conveyor system to turn silicon wafers ito S3 lidar sensors. The facility also includes calibration and final testing.
The company did not say how much the factory cost to build or give production quantities. Since its founding in November 2012 the company has raised $135 million and Delphi, Samsung and Sensata are strategic investors.
The S3 is an optical phased array (OPA) lidar based on a mature silicon CMOS platform. Mass production of the S3 enables automation based on 3D sensing, classification and tracking.
The sales price of the S3 currently varies between several hundred and a few hundred dollars, depending on the quantity ordered. With higher levels of integration in future sensor generations Quanergy predicts the price will drop below $100 per sensor.
“We fully expect that these sensors will play an integral role in bringing self-driving vehicles to the road, as the unparalleled solid state reliability and silicon CMOS cost make them only viable sensors for the production of Level 4 and Level 5 (highly and fully automated) passenger vehicles, and will also contribute to ground-breaking applications in industrial automation and security,” said Louay Eldada, founder and CEO of Quanergy, in a statement.
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