Gapwaves, AT&S Make Cars More Perceptive

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Swedish waveguide company Gapwaves and Austrian microelectronics manufacturer AT&S have entered into a cooperation to industrialize high‑precision waveguide antenna layers for automotive radar applications. The recently signed production agreement marks AT&S’s first engagement as a pure etching provider and opens the door to further joint projects.

Under the agreement, AT&S manufactures ultra‑fine waveguide antenna layers for Gapwaves’ advanced and patented waveguide antennas. The components guide high‑frequency radar signals that allow vehicles to reliably detect their surroundings, supporting modern driver assistance and automated driving functions. The etched antenna layers are produced with micrometer-range tolerances and play a critical role at millimeter‑wave frequencies. Leveraging Gapwaves’ patented Multi-Layer Waveguide (MLW) technology, the antenna layers produced by AT&S are thinner, more compact, and easier to adapt, allowing for faster design iterations and simplified sensor integration.

Gapwaves’ patented MLW technology enables high-performance antennas that are central to the next generation of automotive radar systems, combining low losses, extremely thin profiles, native thermal handling, and cost-efficiency for high production volumes. AT&S delivers precisely etched waveguide antenna layers that play a critical role at high frequencies and are an important component in Gapwaves’ MLW automotive radar antennas.

High-precision etching in Fehring

“This project shows how versatile AT&S’s manufacturing capabilities have become,” says Philipp Reupold, Senior Director Regional Sales Europe at AT&S. “Entering a cooperation as a dedicated etching partner is new for us and creates a strong growth perspective. We thank Gapwaves for the trust and excellent cooperation.” AT&S R&D teams spent nearly two years developing a dedicated etching process capable of meeting Gapwaves’ specifications. Engineering was carried out in Hinterberg, with series production ramping up in Fehring, strengthening the long‑term utilization of the site.

In 2023, Gapwaves selected AT&S as a manufacturing partner, responsible for producing the precision-etched antenna layers that form a key component of Gapwaves’ patented waveguide technology. What started as a development project has now evolved into a production partnership with strong expansion potential. “At millimeter-wave radar frequencies, every micrometer matters. The result of our collaboration is a manufacturable solution that only very few suppliers worldwide could deliver without major investments,” says Roland Heimrath, Expert Application Engineering at AT&S.

“Through a long-term collaboration, Gapwaves and AT&S have successfully integrated our patented Multi-Layer Waveguide antenna technology with their high-precision etching capabilities,” says Claes Haglund, Sourcing Manager at Gapwaves. “The process has been genuinely collaborative – leveraging AT&S’s extensive high-volume manufacturing expertise, we have refined our product offering while jointly optimizing AT&S’s production processes to meet our specific requirements. AT&S is a world-renowned and highly regarded producer, and I am therefore pleased that we now have a formal supply agreement in place for high-volume supply of material for our MLW antennas – securing a scalable and robust supply chain that meets the rigorous quality standards of the automotive industry.”