Luminar Technologies announced that it will acquire OptoGration Inc., its exclusive InGaAs chip design partner and manufacturer, and will use professional core IP and supply chain security as Luminar and its OEM customers to expand Iris to mass production. The acquisition secured a key part of Luminar's supply chain and allowed it to further integrate with the existing chip design subsidiary Black Forest Engineering (BFE) that Luminar acquired in 2017. Luminar is combining the latest technologies of Optogration and BFE to power its new fifth-generation chip, Iris' lidar chips, and the company is preparing for mass production of its products and technologies.
In the past five years, Luminar has been working closely with OptoGration to develop, iterate and perfect the dedicated InGaAs photodetector technology required for 1550nm lidar. OptoGration has the ability to produce approximately 1 million Luminar-designed InGaAs chips per year at its specialized manufacturing plant in Wilmington, Massachusetts, and has the opportunity to expand to 10 million per year.
"The acquisition of OptoGration is the culmination of our five-year deep technology partnership, which has greatly advanced the proprietary lidar chip to provide industry-leading performance for our latest Iris sensor," co-founder and chief executive Technical officer Jason Eichenholz said. lumen. "The OptoGration team is unique in providing photodetectors with performance and quality that meet our increasingly demanding requirements. Chip-level innovation and integration is the key to unlocking our performance and driving us to significantly reduce costs."
Luminar combines Optogration's InGaAs photodetector chip with a silicon ASIC produced by BFE to create its lidar receiver and processing chip, which is the world's most sensitive and dynamic range InGaAs receiver. It can acquire and process gigabits of accurate data per second to produce the best lidar data. The fifth-generation proprietary chip now powers Luminar's Iris sensor. Iris is the only system that meets stringent performance, safety, scalability, and economic requirements, and can realize autonomous driving in mass-produced vehicles.
As part of this transaction, the founder of OptoGration will join Luminar and will continue to lead the business with Luminar's support.
William Waters, President of OptoGration, said: "Luminar is the ideal home for OptoGration because we have a common vision to change car safety and autonomy through lidar." "We are also committed to continuous innovation and are combining our technologies to We have an incredible track record of improving performance and reducing costs. Together, we can scale up faster and realize Luminar’s vision."
The acquisition of OptoGration is expected to be completed in the third quarter. The transaction price was not disclosed, but it will not have a significant impact on Luminar's cash position or the number of shares.
Luminar is a rookie rising up with the gradual implementation of autonomous driving and Lidar being favored by the market. In December last year, Luminar landed on Nasdaq through the SPAC listing, becoming the second Silicon Valley company dedicated to providing key sensors for autonomous vehicles to complete the listing.
In terms of acquisitions, Luminar also acquired the chip design company Black Forest Engineering in 2018, which specializes in high-performance InGaAs receivers. It is reported that the receiver can provide record-breaking photon efficiency and dynamic range.
From the product point of view, according to related reports, the main difference between Luminar and most lidar sensor suppliers is that the former uses a laser with a wavelength of 1550nm manufactured on indium phosphide (InP) wafers. The advantage is that low-reflectivity objects (such as black cars) can be sensed at a greater distance, which means that autonomous vehicles will have more time to decelerate at high speeds to avoid danger.