Institute of Electronics Engineering Professor Jri Lee’s Paper
On Millimeter Wave Vehicle Anti-Collision Radar Accepted by ISSCC—Electronics for Healthy Living

The ISSCC (International Solid State Circuits Conference), often referred to as the “Olympiad in IC design,” will be held next February in San Francisco, USA. For next year’s Conference, a total of 211 papers are accepted for presentation, of which Taiwan has 14, ranking 5th globally, and occupying 6% of the total. Of these 14 papers that are selected, the topics ranged from millimeter wave automotive collision avoidance radar, multi-antenna WiMAX single chip, and more mini implantable cardiac pacemakers.

National Taiwan University has five papers selected by ISSCC this year, of which the “Ultra High Speed Long Distance Millimeter Wave Communication Technology” authored by Professor Jri Lee of the Institute of Electronics Engineering attracted wide media attention, and held great future market potentials.

Aside from technological research and development, students Mr. Chih-Wei Yu and Miss Jung Hsieh utilized the courses they learned at school and their competition experience to commercialize the technologies, and proffered the optimal business model for target customer groups. Their business model was geared toward male customers who loathe to shop. While the male customers are browsing through the web pages, they can acquire recommendations to their proper attire, and be induced to make a purchase. When applied to an intelligent cell-phone, this technology becomes a new software which can allow male web-shoppers to buy outfits anytime, anywhere, more precisely and fast.

According to statistics, more than two million people worldwide are killed in traffic accidents per year, and most of the deaths are caused by lack of response time and rear end collision. If vehicles moving in high speeds could increase their response time by one second, the drivers would be able to increase their braking distance by 30 meters, resulting in 90% less road casualties. Therefore, front-end collision avoidance radar is an indispensable equipment for transportation safety in the future, and most major car makers in the world have regarded the invention of such a radar as the goal of their research and development.

The cost of the 77 GHz millimeter wave radar currently in use, however, is still exorbitantly expensive and can only be installed on sedans which are worth several millions of dollars. The 77GHz collision avoidance radar invented by Professor Jri Lee’s Lab, on the other hand , is the only highly integrated radar in the world that uses the CMOS manufacturing process, and can detect long distances. The advanced front-end millimeter wave circuit designed by his team, coupled with a specially designed antenna and digital signal processing unit, can instantly detect the distance and speed of the vehicle in front, and its consumption of power is very low. The detection range is good for 100 meters. Because all the key circuits are integrated into one IC, the entire system cost can be greatly reduced to only tens of dollars, which is about 1/50th to 1/100th the price of the commercial modules in use today. Because of its low price, this innovative product can be installed on all cars, instead of only on expensive models as in the past. Thus, Professor Lee’s invention of the collision avoidance radar will bring great benefit to the public.