In the wave of the global automotive industry's transformation towards electrification and intelligence, China is becoming the core battlefield of automotive chip manufacturing. From the explosive growth of new energy vehicle companies such as BYD and Aion , to the technological breakthroughs of local chip companies such as Horizon Robotics and Black Sesame Intelligence, to the accelerated localization layout of international giants such as Infineon and STMicroelectronics, China's automotive chip industry is rising at an unprecedented speed and gradually occupying a dominant position in the global industrial chain.

1\China's electric vehicle market: the "main engine" of global growth

The explosion of China's new energy vehicle market has directly driven the exponential growth of demand for automotive chips. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's new energy vehicle production and sales will exceed 10 million units for the first time in 2024, accounting for 40.9% of total new car sales, and this proportion is still rising rapidly. Take BYD as an example, its sales in March reached 377,400 units, an increase of more than 24% year-on-year, and brands such as Xiaomi Auto and Aion have also joined the "30,000-unit club".

Driven by both policies and markets, China is not only the world's largest electric vehicle consumer market, but also a testing ground for technological innovation. For example, BYD ’s “Eye of God” advanced intelligent driving system has made intelligent driving functions standard on all models , directly driving the industry’s demand for high-performance chips. Data from HSBC shows that 78% of China's electric vehicle sales are concentrated in the top 10 companies, of which BYD accounts for nearly 30%, with a significant head effect.

2\Demand for automotive chips surges: the chip revolution from "functional cars" to "smart cars"

Compared with traditional fuel vehicles, the demand for chips in electric vehicles has increased exponentially. Traditional fuel vehicles require an average of 600-700 chips, while smart electric vehicles use more than 3,000 chips, covering multiple fields such as computing, control, sensing, and communications. Taking Tesla as an example, its autonomous driving system, motor control, visual computing and other modules all rely on a large number of chips.

Domestic enterprises are breaking international monopoly through technological innovation:

Intelligent driving chips : Horizon's Journey 6 series has a computing power of 560TOPS and supports all-level intelligent driving ; Black Sesame Intelligent's Wudang A2000 chip covers scenarios from urban NOA to fully unmanned driving; Huixi Intelligent 's Light to R1 chip targets Transformer large model applications.

Automotive - grade MCU: The DF30 chip jointly developed by Dongfeng adopts the RISC-V architecture and has a functional safety level of ASIL-D; the E3650 chip of CoreDrive Technology has increased its integration by 40% and reduced its cost by 60%.

Power semiconductors: BYD launched the industry's first 1500V SiC power chip, and Silan Microelectronics' SiC MOSFET technology iteration accelerated, helping to improve the energy efficiency of electric vehicles.

3\ International giants’ “localization” choice: China’s supply chain is irreplaceable

Faced with the huge demand in the Chinese market, international chip giants are accelerating their production and R&D deployment in China:

Infineon Technologies : Announced the "localized product definition, production, and ecosystem" strategy, and plans to localize mainstream products by 2027, including microcontrollers, high and low voltage power devices, analog mixed signals, sensors, and memory devices. Infineon 's next-generation 28nm TC4x chip will be completely dependent on domestic production to meet the needs of Chinese customers.

STMicroelectronics : Cooperating with Hua Hong Grace Semiconductor, it will achieve localized manufacturing of 40nm MCU chips by the end of 2025 to meet market demand and optimize supply chain response speed.

NXP : Based on the establishment of a packaging and testing plant in Tianjin, it further promoted the localization of front-end manufacturing and launched the "Artificial Intelligence Innovation Practice Platform Cloud Laboratory", which is now officially online and in operation to strengthen collaboration with Chinese automakers .

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These measures show that China has not only become the world's automotive chip consumption center, but also an indispensable manufacturing and innovation hub in the industrial chain.

4\ Challenges and the future: the leap from “following” to “leading”

Although China has achieved technological breakthroughs in some areas, high-end chips (such as automotive - grade PMIC/SBC, high-side switches, etc.) are still dependent on imports. Gu Yongcheng, vice president of ZTE, pointed out that China needs to build differentiated competitiveness through "localized scenario definition" and "software and hardware collaboration". For example, through vehicle-road-cloud collaborative technology and large model applications, the computing power gap can be made up and "global innovation" can be achieved.

Conclusion:

From "lack of core and soul" to "technology leadership", China's automotive chip industry is reshaping the global landscape at an astonishing speed. Driven by policy support, market demand and technological innovation, China is not only expected to solve the "bottleneck" problem, but also dominate the "brain" and "nerve" of the next generation of smart cars. This industrial transformation is not only an opportunity, but also a key step for China to move from an automotive power to an automotive power.