They also built a second narrowly focused longer range lidar that can be automatically pointed at the ROI of objects visuslly detected beyond the range of velodyne's ~200m.
Advanced LIDAR requires some less-used semiconductor fab technologies, like indium gallium arsenide. So you can't just send an order into a commercial CMOS fab like TMSC. Continental bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which had semiconductor physics PhDs figuring out how to do this. The devices work fine, but early models were for DoD and space applications (the Dragon spacecraft has one), built by hand, and priced accordingly.
Once there's a market for a few million a year, the price will come way down.
IMHO that's overhyping things. There absolutely are foundries that will give you a compound semiconductor chip back. E.g. a lot of radio chips use compound semiconductors, you don't necessarily need your own foundry :)
Also flash LIDAR range is pretty bad and using super-sensitive photodetector arrays results in intolerable yield issues.
I've seen the Conti ASC promos but they haven't posted the range on the solid state lidar's. I was veeery excited about the tech, but from what I understand it's very hard directing the laser of a high enough intensity to implement this in a usefull way.
About 200m in the older ASC models.[1]
There's a tradeoff between field of view and range, depending on lens option. It's likely that a vehicle would have a pair of forward looking units, a narrow beam long range one and a wide beam short range unit.
Advanced Scientific Concepts has been making good flash LIDAR units for years, price point around $100K. Continental acquired ASC and their team, and is transitioning this from a handmade product made by PhDs in Santa Monica, CA into a volume product made like an German auto part.
I saw the original optical bench prototype back in 2003 when we were preparing for the original DARPA Grand Challenge. They aimed it out a garage door into a sunlit parking lot and took 3D images. But it wasn't portable back then, so we couldn't use it.
According to Wikipedia, Velodyne radars have a range of about 120m. If ASC managed to get 200M that is hella impressive. I did hear that their tech has some gotcha's keeping it from series production but it's not really clear to me what is _really_ happening. I do think if they manage to launch this at an acceptable price range it's going to be a big thing.
About 15 of them are talking about it.[1] About five have demoed.[2]
As far as I can tell, nobody is shipping in volume. There are lots of rotating-scanner devices now, still expensive.
LeddarTech is shipping 1x8 and 1x16 pixel flash LIDARs now.[3] That's too low-rez for self driving, and they plan higher resolutions. Velodyne's big scanner is 64x400 (full circle scan). BrashTech, which sells drones for inspecting towers, bridges, and other hard to get at infrastructure, has Continental's flash LIDAR on drones.
So we're at "expensive niche product", waiting for somebody to order in volume.
It seems to be real; there are reviews, with videos.[1] It's easier at short range; the exotic sensor materials aren't needed. Those things are going to be a big win for small mobile robots.
Software might be a differentiator for a while, but it'll likely get commoditised. Self-driving doesn't involve complex UI with high switching costs and has little network effects / virality. And Google doesn't really have distribution locked down for self-driving cars like Search or Gmail.
The hardware on the other hand might not get commoditised so easily. It might have patent protection. If nothing else, high capital costs will mean monopoly or duopoly with enough profits.
