Texas Instruments touts car-radar chip

DALLAS — Texas Instruments Inc., one of the largest suppliers of semiconductors to the automotive industry, said a new range of radar chips is going to shake up the way that cars and industrial equipment see the world around them.

The current radar systems in vehicles — systems that stop cars from running into those ahead of them — are an integral part of attempts to build self-driving systems. Typically, they are boxes measuring inches across that house multiple components and require watts of power.

A new range of chips from Texas Instruments, nine years in development, reduces that to a postage-stamp sized part, according to the Dallas-based company.

Texas Instruments, the largest maker of analog chips, rarely publicly touts the capabilities of its products, trying instead to focus investors’ attention on the company’s variety of offerings and how that broad range lessens its dependence on any one customer or market. Automotive customers contribute about 18 percent of its sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The parts, which will sell for the “low tens of dollars each,” will provide tough competition for rival technologies such as pressure sensors and lidar, said Greg Delagi, a senior vice president. The company has a 6.9 percent stake of the market for automotive chips, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.