Breakthrough automotive chips released in Nanming district

Local company representative talks about the JX110 vehicle-mounted lidar chip at the Seminar on Integration and Development of Domestic Semiconductor and Big Data Industry held at Nanming district on Oct 29. [Photo/gywb.cn]

The unveiling of two new key chips for the automotive industry in Guiyang city's Nanming district recently marked a potential breakthrough for the sector, according to local officials.

The two chips were released in the capital city of southwestern Guizhou province, at the Seminar on Integration and Development of Domestic Semiconductor and Big Data Industry held at the district on Oct 29.

Industry insiders said they represented an exciting development in a new industry driven by integrated circuits.

According to local media reports, the new automotive chips released at the seminar are the JX110 and the EM03 chips.

The JX110 vehicle-mounted lidar chip was researched and developed by Guizhou Jixin Technology Co Ltd in the Guizhou Joint Research Center on Integrate Circuits built by Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Nanming district.

The chip adopts 28 nanometer processing technology, with an integrated RISC-V dual-core CPU. It adapts to various types of lidar and supports the industry's standard for 200 meter detection distance and 1 centimeter scanning accuracy.

It can not only perform long-term software upgrades for a certain type of lidar algorithms, but also flexibly adapt to many types of traditional lidar technology developing directions.

The chip was completed in small batches, using 28nm processing technology, in early October this year. It is expected to pass international vehicle regulatory certification and start mass production in mid-2020.

The EM03 truck intelligent chip was developed by Nanming-based Guizhou Yingming Zhihui IoT Technology Co Ltd.

The chip uses a 12.3 inch streaming high-definition vertical screen, which is the industry's first intelligent vehicle device supporting multi-channel truck monitoring.

The EM03 chip has smaller full-load power consumption, a longer product life, smaller circuit size and a greater range of temperature adaptions.

It supports tire pressure monitoring, fuel tank monitoring, DMS (Driver Monitor Status) and ADAS (Advanced Driving Assistant System). It can perform 12 trillion deep learning operations per second and supports image space reconstruction and recognition engines.

According to local media reports, the EM03 chip will be go into mass production in Nanming district. It is estimated that by 2020, the company will have an annual production capacity of 300,000 chips and that it will achieve sales revenue of more than 300 million yuan ($42.49 million) by 2021.

The company said that the EM03 chip has been favored by Dongfeng Motor Corporation which has signed a supply contract.