Quanergy, a provider of solid-state Lidar sensors and smart sensing solutions, has announced the opening of a new production factory located in Sunnyvale, California (US). The facility produces Quanergy’s S3 solid state Lidar sensor. With the commissioning of this facility, Quanergy says it is now the only company to mass produce solid state 3D Lidar sensors.
Officially opened at a ribbon cutting ceremony in October 2017, the new facility boasts the latest manufacturing technology and features a high-capacity, fully automated production line in a clean-room environment. The line features semiconductor handling and packaging equipment, including high-precision photonic IC processing tools and a conveyor system connecting the machinery that turns a silicon wafer cassette into finished Lidar sensors. The facility also includes calibration and final testing, enabling Quanergy to oversee the entire production process and provide high quality and reliability in an industry that has thus far relied mainly on manual labor to build mechanical Lidars. The manufacturing facility also has the capability to expand to increase capacity based on market demands.
Quanergy has commercialized an optical phased array (OPA) Lidar based on an ultralow-cost mature silicon CMOS platform. The work builds upon an electronic beam steering DARPA-sponsored program, on which the core team worked in the early 1990s.
S3 is a solid state Lidar sensor designed for safety-critical applications, such as autonomous vehicles. Its compact configuration allows the sensor to be concealed within the body of a vehicle or machine without compromising its design aesthetics or aerodynamics. The mass production of the S3 enables smart automation based on HD 3D sensing, classification and tracking.
Quanergy has received multiple awards for its Lidar sensor technology, and the S3 won the 2017 CES Best of Innovation Award.
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