SPCNEWS
The EU Passed a Law. Now Every Car Company Needs a Radar Chip.
At CES 2026, Taiwan's startup pavilion hosted 57 companies working across generative AI, edge computing, precision healthcare, smart manufacturing, and green energy. Underneath the familiar startup narrative, something more specific was happening: a cluster of Taiwanese companies had identified a specific piece of EU regulation as a demand signal, and were positioning themselves accordingly.
The regulation is Euro NCAP 2025, the European New Car Assessment Programme's updated safety rating protocol, with requirements taking effect January 1, 2025 that include detecting children aged three to six who become locked in a vehicle without a caregiver's knowledge, per Forciot's coverage of the regulation. Euro NCAP 2025 explicitly requires direct sensing for Child Presence Detection, not image-based inference from cameras. That distinction sent every major automaker searching for 60GHz millimeter-wave radar that fits an automotive bill of materials.
The result is a mandatory adoption cycle for a specific piece of hardware that nobody outside the industry had heard of three years ago.
Taiwan's Millilab is in the pipeline. The company's 60GHz radar sensor, built around Socionext's SC1260AR3 chip, is designed to detect occupant vital signs through seat materials and clothing without compromising passenger privacy, according to Millilab's product documentation. Unlike a camera, radar does not generate an image that needs processing or storage. It just counts heartbeats. That turns out to matter a great deal when regulators and privacy advocates are both in the room.
The algorithmic work is what got Millilab into tier-1 automotive supply chains. Integrating 60GHz radar into a vehicle interior means understanding radio wave propagation through seat materials, the specific detection algorithms that separate a sleeping child from a bag of groceries, and the validation protocols that satisfy Euro NCAP's test procedures. That combination of radar hardware and detection software is what the regulation actually requires.
Texas Instruments and Infineon supply the competing radar chipset ecosystem, per TI's compliance documentation. The supply chain for 60GHz automotive radar is not long, and it is not flexible. You need a radar chip that works at that frequency, meets automotive temperature and vibration specs, and has an algorithm library that passes validation. There are not many companies that can check all three boxes.
ABI Research projects 3.5 million 60GHz automotive radar shipments by 2030, driven almost entirely by this regulation. That is a significant number for a component that did not exist in cars five years ago. The compound annual growth rate from a near-zero baseline is steep by any measure.
Volvo deployed 60GHz radar for interior detection in the EX90 electric SUV, the company's flagship three-row vehicle, per Volvo's announcement. The system detects minute movements in the footwells, seats, and cargo area to determine if anyone remains in the car after the driver exits. Volvo made this standard where regulations permit the 60GHz frequency. Other automakers are at various stages of the same deployment.
The regulatory push has a counterpart: supply chain security. International buyers, particularly in defense-adjacent sectors, increasingly require traceable supply chains with verified engineering credentials. Taiwan's position in semiconductor manufacturing and system integration has made its suppliers attractive as geopolitical risk entered the procurement vocabulary. Millilab's path into European automotive is not disconnected from the broader recalibration of where automakers source critical components.
Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) have supported the ecosystem. Since 2018, TTA has incubated over 1,000 startups, with 1,069 teams across AI, semiconductors, green energy, and medical technologies attracting nearly $400 million in investment, according to EE Times field reporting from CES 2026. The startups working in physical AI, sensor integration, and embedded systems are a downstream effect of Taiwan's semiconductor industry having enough depth to support application-layer companies.
The gap between platform announcements and actual deployment is where these companies operate. The practical version is: someone has to make the radar work in a car seat, and that requires understanding the physics of radio waves at 60GHz, the regulatory test protocols, and the manufacturing constraints of automotive supply chains simultaneously.
The chip companies get the announcements. Companies like Millilab do the integration work that determines whether the chip actually functions in the application. That work is less visible and less celebrated, but it is where the regulation's intent meets the physical world.
What to watch: which automakers miss the Euro NCAP 2025 rating window because they could not source radar modules in time. The regulation does not pause for supply chain shortages. The shortage of qualified 60GHz automotive radar suppliers is a real constraint, and the OEMs that locked in supply agreements earliest have a structural advantage that has nothing to do with their vehicles' other features.