On May 30th, with the acceleration of the trend towards electrification and intelligence in automobiles, the demand for automotive grade chips is increasing day by day. Especially the MCU (Micro Control Unit), which can be widely used in various scenarios such as motor control, battery management, vehicle electronics, driving assistance systems, information entertainment systems, etc., has a particularly strong market demand, attracting a large number of new and old players from both domestic and foreign countries to participate.

At the 7th 2024 Forum on Intelligent Driving and Human Machine Co driving, hosted by GAC, Chen Xi, CEO of Xihua Technology, stated in an interview with Geek Network and others that nowadays, an intelligent connected vehicle requires more than 1000 types of chips, with MCU being one of the most important categories; A car typically requires dozens of MCU chips to support its complex electronic systems and intelligent functions, and some high-end models may even use over 100 MCUs.

Faced with huge market demand and fierce market competition, Xihua Technology adopts a differentiated product strategy, based on high-end automotive grade MCUs, and develops MCU+products for specific application scenarios (such as touch MCUs, motor driven MCUs, etc.). This not only meets the market segmentation needs, but also gains a competitive advantage for itself, paving a unique path of combining technological innovation with market deepening.

Innovate TMCU solutions to provide the best assistance for autonomous driving on the track

The so-called MCU+is based on the universal kernel and functions of MCU, combined with specific application scenarios, overlaying different hardware modules and software capabilities to achieve different functions. In Chen Xi's view, as intelligent connected vehicles gradually transform into mobile living spaces, experiential spaces, and even walking robots, there are more and more in car applications, and there is also an increasing demand for MCU+innovation.

During the forum, Xihua Technology released an innovative TMCU (Touch MCU) solution under the company's MCU+product strategy. This scheme adopts a capacitor design, which generates an induction capacitor through the heating wire on the steering wheel. Combined with advanced algorithms to detect the human body, it can achieve a lower cost and better effect of steering wheel out of hand detection (HoD) compared to optical sensing, pressure sensing and other schemes. The capacitance range of TMCU has reached 4000pF, far exceeding the highest level at home and abroad.

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According to regulations, new energy vehicles with autonomous driving and assisted driving functions must be equipped with HoD function to ensure the safety of drivers and passengers. With the increasing penetration rate of intelligent connected vehicles in China and the decentralization of automatic/assisted driving functions to entry-level models, the demand in this market will be increasing, and cost considerations will also become more sensitive.

It is reported that Xihua Technology has collaborated with multiple Tier1 and host manufacturers to design a capacitive HoD docking solution, which supports both the reuse of heating wires and the separation of heating wires, meeting the different needs of customers. It is confident that it will become the best assistant in the autonomous driving track.

In addition to the HoD scene, Xihua Technology TMCU also covers a variety of 1D, 2D, and 3D touch and perception applications, including various buttons, touch screens/touchboards, as well as gesture recognition, distance sensing, etc., with broad application prospects and imagination space.

Backed by the domestic automobile industry chain, deeply cultivating the market and building differentiated competitiveness

Stimulated by the shortage of chips during the epidemic and driven by domestic substitution, China's automotive grade chips, including MCUs, have made significant progress in the past few years. More than ten local MCU manufacturers, including Xihua Technology, have emerged. However, overall, international manufacturers still dominate the global MCU supply, accounting for about 90% of the market and dominating the mid to high end market.

After obtaining the entry ticket for the vehicle specification MCU, how to break through and extend from 0 to 1 to the mid to high end market has become an important issue for local MCU manufacturers. Chen Xi believes that international giants have advantages in economies of scale and vertical integration. With the development of China's automotive industry and its geographical and resource advantages in going global, as local manufacturers, they have very obvious differentiation advantages and opportunities in the 0-1 stage. When the software and hardware functions are close or stable, domestic manufacturers can gain a competitive advantage over international manufacturers through technical support and service capabilities.

"Fundamentally, I think we need to rely on innovation and integration to meet various new needs." Chen Xi said that popular minimally invasive applications such as in car ambient lighting, wireless charging, and HoD were basically first used by Chinese car manufacturers. In the global market of about 90 million vehicles, China can now produce over 30 million vehicles, and many people believe that it can achieve a scale of 40 million vehicles in the future. Innovation is driving China to transform from an automotive powerhouse to an automotive powerhouse.

Therefore, Chen Xi believes that relying on the domestic automobile market and the domestic automobile industry chain behind it, domestic MCU manufacturers can build differentiated competitiveness by deeply cultivating the market and achieve breakthroughs from 0 to 1. After firmly establishing a foothold and moving forward, it will comprehensively test the enterprise's technological research and development, system ecology, product matrix, as well as long-term sustainable and stable operation capabilities, and compete head-on with international major enterprises.

Along this path, as a chip design company focused on intelligent perception and computing control, Xihua Technology's product layout has covered application fields such as automotive MCU, intelligent decoding, proximity sensing, capacitive touch, and pressure sensing. It provides high-performance, highly reliable, and safe 32-bit MCU and MCU+chips for automotive electronic applications in fields such as automotive body, power, chassis, gateway, and autonomous driving. Its partners and service customers exceed 200+, with more than 400 patent layouts and over 50 million chip shipments.