On Aug. 16, 2021, Calterah officially announced its Alps family members of mmWave radar sensor SoC chips had been certified as ASIL-B fully compliant by TÜV Rheinland, becoming China’s first to obtain the ISO 26262 full compliance certification.

Fig. 1 Dr Chen Jiashu (left), CEO of Calterah, Receiving Certificate from Dr Chen Weikang (right), Vice President of Industrial Service and Cyber Security Stream of TÜV Rheinland Group Greater China

Calterah CEO Dr Chen Jiashu and Calterah representatives from its functional safety project team, and Dr Chen Weikang, Vice President of the Industrial Services and Cyber Security Stream of TÜV Rheinland Group Greater China and Yang Jiayue, Vice General Manager of Industrial Services and Cyber Security Stream of TÜV Rheinland Group Greater China, were present at the certification awarding ceremony.

ISO 26262 is comprised of 12 parts with the following parts applicable to semiconductors: Part 2 Functional Safety Management, Part 5 Hardware-Level Product Development, Part 8 Supporting Processes, Part 9 ASIL-Oriented and Safety-Oriented Analysis, and Part 11 Guidelines on Application of ISO 26262 to Semiconductors. Calterah Alps products have been assessed by TÜV Rheinland in terms of their compliance with all of the five mentioned parts, covering safety lifecycle management, hardware safety requirements, hardware architectural design, hardware detailed design, hardware integration and verification, verification against the features and performances of engineering samples, reliability testing, and user documentation. With completion and passing of the assessment, Calterah becomes China’s first to have certified chip products with full compliance with ISO 26262 ASIL-B.

Fig. 2 Group Photo of Calterah Functional Safety Project Representatives and TÜV Rheinland Representatives

The certified Alps products are composed of a 2T4R/4T4R transceiver, a highly configurable FMCW generator, high-speed ADCs, a baseband, and a high-performance processor. The development of Alps products strictly complies with the V model and about 3000 random failure modes have been analyzed with corresponding safety mechanisms designed to meet ISO 26262 ASIL-B requirements with regard to systematic failure, random failure and other aspects.  

Fig. 3 ISO 26262 ASIL-B Certificate for Calterah Alps Products

Sticking to a rigorous development process, Calterah has conducted iterations of testing and full verification to improve the safety and reliability of its chip products. mmWave radar sensor chips are essential sensing units in ADAS and autonomous driving. By achieving the functional safety product certification, Calterah Alps has showcased its full compliance with functional safety requirements, which not only helps customers reach safety goals of ADAS, but also means reduced time for Alps-based systems to pass high-level safety evaluation and therefore an accelerated New Product Introduction process and mass production.

The ISO 26262 product certificate marks the culmination of three years of joint efforts from R&D, marketing and project management, said the CEO of Calterah, Dr Chen, adding this speaks volume about Calterah’s investment, know-how and capability in functional safety. As of today, we have built a complete functional safety management system and achieved product certification, which is a vivid example of honoring the company values of breaking limits and collaborating for success. At the same time, we are greatly impressed by and have benefited from the professionalism and meticulousness demonstrated by those from TÜV Rheinland involved in the certification process.

Calterah is a leading company in mmWave radar technology and TÜV Rheinland expects to have deeper and broader exchanges and dialogues with it and have Calterah in its future summits and forums, according to Dr Chen Weikang, Vice President of the Industrial Service and Cyber Security Stream of TÜV Rheinland Group Greater China.

Moving forward, Calterah will roll out more automotive radar sensor SoC chips with greater performance and in compliance with functional safety requirements. Dedicated to becoming world’s best in mmWave radar sensor chips, Calterah aspires to “Make mmWave Serve Everyone”, with safety and reliability ensured.