Lidar is quickly gaining traction among automotive OEMs for its ability to scan the environment around vehicles and alert drivers to potential hazards or issues.

Lidar is one of the main components in future autonomous vehicles — as well as using lidar in current pilot projects where these vehicles are being tested — but the current use of lidar in the automotive sector is being extended to advanced driver assistant systems (ADASs). ADASs are used to enhance the safety in automotive vehicles and bring new safety features that have not been in current cars to this point.

The LeiShen lidar system features a field programmable gate array (FPGA) from Xilinx and serial flash memory at ISSI and many more components used to enable these safety systems.

The following is a partial deep dive into the LeiShen lidar laser range finder from TechInsights.

Summary

• Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA
• ISSI serial flash memory
• Broadcom Ethernet transceiver

Released: August 2022

Price: $15,000

Target market: Automotive

Availability: Worldwide

Main board

The main board has the main processor and memory such as the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA, serial flash memory from ISSI and automotive Ethernet transceiver from Broadcom. Other electronic components include:

• ST Microelectronics’ power MOSFET
• Analog Devices’ wideband synthesizer with VCO and eight channel, 12 bit ADC
• Monolithic Power Systems’ 3 amp step-down DC-DC converter
• WINSOK’s p-channel MOSFET
• CrossChip’s linear current sensor
• Texas Instruments’ RS 232-line driver/receiver w/ESD, digital audio converter and 2.5 voltage reference
• SilTek’s MOSFET driver

(Learn more about discrete components on Globalspec.com)

Power box board

The power box board features the 32-bit microcontroller from APTCHIP Microelectronics, Broadcom’s automotive Ethernet transceiver, Motorcomm’s gigabit Ethernet transceiver and more.

(Learn more about communication ICs on Globalspec.com)

Optical board

The electronic components used on the optical board include power management and sensors as well as discrete components. Specifically, the board has:

• 3Peak’s 12-bit quad DAC and dual operational amplifier
• CrossChip’s linear current sensor
• Runic’s dual two-input positive-OR gate
• Monolithic Power Systems’ 6 amp step-up DC-DC converter and 1 amp LDO regulator
• Texas Instruments’ GaN/MOSFET driver and temperature sensor
• NCE Powers’ power MOSFET
• SGMicro’s thermoelectric cooler controller
• Analog Devices’ step-down DC-DC controller

(Learn more about sensors on Globalspec.com)

Major components

• $174.78 — Fiber optic cable (Qty: 1)
• $142.90 — Laser diode module (Qty: 2)
• $56.31 — Fiber coupled laser (Qty: 1)
• $34.48 — Main glass filter (Qty: 1)
• $26.96 — Power box subsystem — LeiShen (Qty: 1)
• $14.76 — Artix-7 FPGA — Xilinx (Qty: 1)
• $13.37 — Bottom enclosure (Qty: 1)
• $12.68 — Top enclosure (Qty: 1)
• $10.55 — Lens 1 (Qty: 1)
• $10.38 — Lens 3 (Qty: 1)