A dielectric waveguide solution for automotive high-speed communication - a potential extension to traditional signal transmission options?

The continuously and rapidly developing automotive sector is in the urgent need for high-speed interconnectivity solutions. Such solutions are required to provide 100 Gbps per lane in order to manage the vastly increasing data volume generated by sensors necessary, for instance, to facilitate automated or even autonomous driving. From Rosenberger’s perspective as a leading high-speed connectivity supplier for the automotive industry, dielectric waveguide technology is a candidate that potentially could outperform traditional copper and optical solutions in short distance applications below 15 m requiring large data bandwidth. In a nutshell, the multi-layered polymer waveguide is lightweight, robust against physical and chemical influences, and inexpensive while introducing galvanic isolation and a minimum of loss and dispersion. Thus, the transmission via a single polymer microwave fiber should be competitive to established multi-lane copper solutions, such as four IEEE Std 802.3cy™ ethernet connections, achieving 100 Gbps. The research efforts and research contributions in polymer waveguides at Rosenberger originate from academic collaborations and focus on the D-band frequency regime between 110 GHz to 170 GHz for more than a decade, readying the technology to meet the developing capabilities and requirements of integrated circuits.