Design freedom for improved signal transmission

As urban­iza­tion pro­pels the devel­op­ment of self-dri­ving tech­nol­o­gy and broad­er imple­men­ta­tion of advanced dri­ver assis­tance sys­tems, auto­mo­tive OEMs and tiers are active­ly seek­ing high-per­for­mance mate­ri­als that can opti­mize the capa­bil­i­ties of today’s high­er-fre­quen­cy, mil­lime­ter-wave (mmWave) radar units. To help meet this need, SABIC is launch­ing two new mate­ri­als, LNP^™ THERMOCOMP^™ WFC06I and WFC06IXP com­pounds, devel­oped for the front and back enclo­sure cov­ers (respec­tive­ly) of next-gen­er­a­tion radar units.

The new glass fiber-rein­forced poly­buty­lene tereph­tha­late (PBT) grades offer a very low dis­si­pa­tion fac­tor (Df) and dielec­tric con­stant to help sup­port the trans­mis­sion of high­er-fre­quen­cy radar sig­nals. They also fea­ture super-low warpage that allows design­ers to poten­tial­ly cre­ate new, thin­ner cov­ers that improve sig­nal trans­mis­sion. Fur­ther­more, these new SABIC prod­ucts can con­tribute to effi­cient radar unit assem­bly by sup­port­ing high-speed, high-pre­ci­sion laser weld­ing. In fact, LNP THERMOCOMP WFC06I com­pound pro­vides excel­lent laser trans­mis­sion per­for­mance among PBT mate­ri­als cur­rent­ly available.

“Advance­ments in ADAS are accel­er­at­ing rapid­ly as the auto­mo­tive indus­try devel­ops new vehi­cle tech­nolo­gies aimed at alle­vi­at­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion and improv­ing safe­ty in expand­ing urban areas. SABIC is aggres­sive­ly devel­op­ing new mate­ri­als to help ADAS design­ers achieve goals relat­ed to size and weight reduc­tion, sig­nal trans­mis­sion accu­ra­cy and reli­a­bil­i­ty improve­ments, and seam­less inte­gra­tion with the vehi­cle. We work close­ly with com­pa­nies at all lev­els of the ADAS val­ue chain to under­stand fast-chang­ing and demand­ing require­ments and deliv­er tai­lored, high-per­for­mance mate­r­i­al solu­tions that address them.”

-  Joshua Chi­aw, Direc­tor, Busi­ness Management

Improving Radar Image Resolution

Many ADAS design­ers are adopt­ing high­er fre­quen­cy mmWave radar tech­nol­o­gy because its improved image res­o­lu­tion and greater range can enable safer dri­ving under a vari­ety of con­di­tions. How­ev­er, fre­quen­cies in the 76 – 81 GHz band present greater trans­mis­sion chal­lenges com­pared to low­er fre­quen­cies. To improve wave trans­mis­sion, radar cov­ers require very low Df and Dk, thin­ner walls and a sim­pli­fied design with­out sup­port struc­tures. Incum­bent glass-filled PBT mate­ri­als typ­i­cal­ly do not meet these trans­mis­sion opti­miza­tion require­ments; for exam­ple, they have a Df per­for­mance that is greater than 0.01. Also, as semi-crys­talline poly­mers, they have a high ten­den­cy to warp when used in thin-wall parts with­out sup­port struc­tures, poten­tial­ly lead­ing to part fail­ure dur­ing assem­bly, trans­port and use.

SABIC’s new LNP THERMOCOMP com­pounds sur­pass incum­bent PBT com­pounds in Df/Dk per­for­mance and warpage con­trol and can reduce atten­u­a­tion of elec­tro-mag­net­ic waves pass­ing through the radar cov­ers to help improve image res­o­lu­tion and range. They also enhance trans­mis­sion and min­i­mize side cones of the sig­nal beam for improved image qual­i­ty. In addi­tion, the new LNP THERMOCOMP com­pounds pro­vide high­er duc­til­i­ty for improved impact resis­tance, and equiv­a­lent mois­ture and chem­i­cal resis­tance vs. incum­bent PBT materials.

Facilitating Laser Welding

Laser weld­ing is a fast and high­ly effi­cient auto­mo­tive process that can accel­er­ate through­put. Laser weld­ing of plas­tic com­po­nents offers advan­tages includ­ing the abil­i­ty to pro­duce minia­tur­ized and high­ly intri­cate parts and elim­i­nate con­sum­ables such as adhe­sives and fas­ten­ers. Pre­cise, strong welds can pro­tect sen­si­tive elec­tron­ics against dust and moisture.

SABIC’s LNP THERMOCOMP WFC06I com­pound for radar front cov­ers fea­tures a laser trans­mis­sion rate of over 60 per­cent – 20 per­cent high­er than the near­est competitor’s. Cus­tomers can use its wide laser win­dow and low laser pow­er to poten­tial­ly increase yield rates. The oth­er new grade – LNP THERMOCOMP WFC06IXP com­pound – acts as the absorb­ing lay­er for laser welding.

“Reach­ing the full poten­tial of auto­mo­tive radar for assist­ed and autonomous dri­ving requires improve­ments in design, per­for­mance and pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy,” said Jen­ny Wang, Direc­tor, For­mu­la­tion & Appli­ca­tion, APAC, Spe­cial­ties, SABIC. “SABIC con­tin­ues to break new ground in mate­r­i­al sci­ence with the goal of solv­ing our cus­tomers’ chal­lenges in opti­miz­ing ADAS designs. Our new glass-filled PBT com­pounds con­tribute by sup­port­ing the adop­tion of new tech­nolo­gies like mmWave radar with enhanced features.”