Editing by Greg Gao

The chip shortage, especially of MCU, for the automotive, had reduced vehicle production last year worldwide. But the shortage has also given more opportunities to new Chinese MCU providers. Beijing-based NavInfo(四维图新) is such an example.

The company started as a geological navigation software service company in 2002, but it jumped into the MCU business by acquiring such a chip company in 2016 after Sun Yuguo, Chairman of NavInfo, proposed the strategy of building an intelligent driving system that combines navigation, the vehicle of internet, autonomous driving, integrated circuits, and industrial applications. 

As the core chip for the control of various functions of the vehicle, MCU is mainly used in systems such as body control, driving control, infotainment, and driving assistance, accounting for about 30% of the semiconductor devices equipped in a vehicle. 

In 2016, NavInfo acquired AutoChips Inc(杰发科技), an automotive electronic chip design company, at RMB3.875 billion($607 million), filling its gap in the automobile chip field. At the end of 2018, AutoChips mass-produced China’s first domestic 32-bit automotive-grade MCU AC7811 that complies with the international standard AEC-Q100.

In 2019, the company launched the first full-featured single-chip solution for automotive-grade TPMS, and in 2020, it released AC8015, a new generation of high-performance intelligent cockpit chips. 

Currently, AutoChips has formed four product portfolios, including automotive application processors, audio power amplifiers, automotive-grade microprocessors, and tire pressure monitoring system chips, with products used by more than 500 models worldwide and shipments exceeding 70 million. Among them, both the automotive-grade MCU and tire pressure monitoring chip have achieved millions of shipments.