At the recently concluded Calterah Day 2025 on June 6, Calterah revealed groundbreaking advancements in its mmWave radar chips across three major automotive radar markets: imaging radar, ADAS radar, and emerging short-range radar. At the event, Calterah also launched the world's first ultra-wideband (UWB) SoC series compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4ab standard, Dubhe. From mmWave sensing to UWB connectivity, Calterah drives forward the next wave of chip innovations for intelligent and connected cars.

Calterah mmWave Radar Chip Innovations Empowering Active Safety

"Intelligence without safety is meaningless," emphasized Dr. Jiashu Chen, Calterah's Founder and CEO, during the event. In the past eleven years in the mmWave chip field, each technological breakthrough and performance leap in chips made by Calterah has been aimed at advancing active safety, reducing traffic accidents, and making safe and intelligent mobility serve more people.

Zheng Wang, head of Calterah's mmWave radar product line, presented the latest achievements and market progress of Calterah's mmWave radar chip solutions across segments of imaging radar, ADAS radar, and emerging short-range radar. The audience also got to experience in-person the real-car demos that showcased the comprehensive safety protection enabled by Calterah radar chips for intelligent driving assistance.

      •  Andes Premium 8T8R Imaging Radar Solution

As global AEB regulations are raising the bar of the highest speeds for cars to perform emergency braking, radar sensors are required to enhance range detection, weak target detection, and height measurement. Calterah addresses these challenges with its premium 8-transmitter 8-receiver (8T8R) imaging radar solution, based on two cascading Andes RoP^® chips, working with waveguide antennas. This solution achieves revolutionary full-range height measurement within 350 m and significantly enhances angular resolution, point cloud density, and other capabilities.

In field tests, the Andes premium 8T8R imaging radar solution detects the height of a gantry accurately at a range over 300 meters, stably detects a traffic cone 100-plus meters away, and clearly distinguishes between road barriers and a pedestrian next to the barriers. The solution has already been adapted for mass production by leading domestic automotive OEMs, enabling advanced automotive sensing.

Height Measurement Ranges for Strong and Weak Targets by Andes Premium 8T8R Imaging Radar Solution

      •  Alps-Pro RoP^® ADAS Radar Solution

Maintaining full signal processing capability, the Alps-Pro RoP^® SoC doubles its pedestrian detection range and enhances other performances compared to the standard Alps-Pro SoC. Field tests show that the Alps-Pro RoP^® SoC surpasses a competitor’s low-cost variant (that reduces computation power) in point cloud accuracy, angular resolution, and point cloud density, offering reliable sensing for automotive active safety. After being introduced into mainstream car OEMs in China, the Alps-Pro RoP^® ADAS radar solution has also been awarded car models from a traditional European luxury OEM for the first time, continuously contributing to the active safety of intelligent driving assistance.

      •  Lancang-USRR CPD Radar Solution

Calterah's latest in-cabin Child Presence Detection (CPD) solution is enabled by the industry-first 6-transmitter 6-receiver (6T6R) radar SoC—Lancang-USRR AiP. With 36 virtual channels and abundant computing resources, it achieves ultra-compact radar size and extremely low power consumption. Leveraging rich point cloud data and powerful machine learning algorithms supported by strong computing power, Lancang-USRR can accurately distinguish between a baby dummy in a footwell and moving objects (e.g., a moving toy dog, a swaying toy bell, etc.), markedly enhancing detection robustness and user experience.

Lancang-USRR CPD Radar Accurately Detecting a Baby Dummy in a Footwell 

No False Alarms of Lancang-USRR CPD Radar Caused by Toy Dog or Swaying Bell Inside Cabin

In 2025, Calterah expects to ship 16 million units of mmWave radar chips annually, on a trend to capture over one-third of the Chinese automotive mmWave radar market. In particular, in the 4T4R mmWave radar chip sector, Calterah has stood out as an industry leader. Through years of customer-centric and application-driven strategies, independent thinking and innovations, and persistent efforts, Calterah has managed to maintain robust competitiveness in mmWave radar chips and strong and dynamic growth.

Dubhe UWB SoCs Defining Next-Gen Digital Keys

With cars becoming more electric, intelligent, connected, and shared, high-precision bidirectional positioning has become essential in scenarios such as seamless locking and unlocking by digital keys, comfort features including guest-welcoming mode, etc. To fulfill such needs, the ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is the optimal solution. Using a wide frequency bandwidth of over 500 MHz, it can achieve secure ranging and positioning with high precision when operating in the 6 GHz–10 GHz range.

Dubhe UWB Chips Enabling Digital Key Applications

Addressing this demand, Calterah has leveraged its technical expertise and advantages and launched the world's first IEEE 802.15.4ab-compliant UWB SoC series—Dubhe, also the world's first UWB SoC series providing 2T4R radar capability. Named after the first star of the Big Dipper, Dubhe tackles challenges to existing digital key solutions, bringing multiple benefits to intelligent automotive applications. Junming Xiao, head of Calterah's UWB product line, elaborated on the features and advantages of the Dubhe series.

ü      Significantly Enhanced Ranging

Using the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)-Assisted Multi-Millisecond (MMS) mode of the upcoming IEEE 802.15.4ab standard, Dubhe SoCs extend the detection range beyond 400 m, multi-fold of the range achieved under IEEE 802.15.4z mode, empowering car finding function in long ranges.

ü      Improved Penetration

Dubhe's 4ab standard MMS mode achieves up to 20 dB signal gain. Field tests show the signals of a Dubhe SoC under BLE-Assisted MMS mode can penetrate five cars in the complex environment of an underground car park, ensuring stable non-line-of-sight (NLoS) positioning for seamless car locking and unlocking.

Positioning Trajectory of a Dubhe CAL110xAQ Chip Moving Around 5 Vehicles in an Underground Car Park

ü      Reuse for Multiple Functions

The Dubhe 2T4R chip (CAL1106AQ) offers strong radar capability, enabling kick sensing, in-cabin presence detection, intrusion detection, and other radar functions by using just one set of hardware devices, thus lowering system costs. 

Dubhe UWB Chips Enabling Automotive Radar Applications

ü      Optimal Power Efficiency

Using a 22 nm process and a low-power architectural design, the Dubhe SoCs reduce transmitting power by 32% and receiving power by 56% compared to a competitor solution, greatly extending the operating time to support applications such as the sentry mode, which are required to standby for a long time.

Owing to its strong capabilities in secure ranging, precise positioning, and radar sensing, the Dubhe consumer-grade chips (CAL110xCW) extend applications to various consumer scenarios and also support an ultra-compact 3 mm × 3 mm package. Targeting remote controls, access systems, indoor positioning and navigation, presence detection, robot communication, contactless subway gate access, etc., Dubhe SoCs can empower intelligent and seamless connectivity experiences.

Calterah Day 2025 also gathered global partners in the automotive industry, including experts from Qualcomm, Nuclei System Technology, Techno Systems Research, TÜV Rheinland, and Yole Group, to share insights on the latest technological and market trends of mmWave radar and UWB.

Going forward, Calterah will continue the collaboration with global customers, partners, and the ecosystem to advance the development of intelligent and connected automobiles for enhancing automotive active safety and make both the UWB and mmWave technologies empower everyone’s life.