Global and China Automotive Microcontroller Unit (MCU) Industry Report 2025 Featuring 21 Chinese Automotive MCU Vendors and 6 International Automotive MCU Vendors - ResearchAndMarkets.com

The "Automotive Microcontroller Unit (MCU) Industry Report, 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Research on automotive MCUs: the independent, controllable supply chain for automotive MCUs is rapidly maturing

Mid-to-high-end MCUs for intelligent vehicle control are a key focus of domestic products replacing foreign ones.

In the trends towards software-defined vehicles, intelligence, and electrification, the intelligent vehicle control sector has higher requirements for high-performance, high-reliability automotive MCUs. It is estimated that in 2027, the penetration rate of 'quasi-central + zonal' architecture in China's passenger cars will hit 16.3%, and that of "central + zonal" architecture will reach 14.3%, giving a big boost to the demand for mid-to-high-end automotive MCUs.

Currently, automotive MCU process nodes are primarily at 40nm and above, and mature. With the evolution of EEA, some advanced automotive MCU products will increasingly adopt 28/22nm process or even more advanced 16/18nm.

Mid-to-high-end MCUs for intelligent vehicle control are mainly deployed in zone control units (ZCU), central domain control units (XCU), autonomous driving and power/chassis domain control units, and central computing units (CCU). Application scenarios include electric power steering systems, electronic stability control systems, suspension systems, anti-lock braking systems, airbag systems, new energy vehicle inverters, and battery management systems. Companies like Infineon and Renesas dominate the high-end markets of autonomous driving and power/chassis domains with TC4x and RH850 series, which already cover 16-28nm process nodes.

Meanwhile, some Chinese chip vendors have gradually made technological breakthroughs and had the ability to replace their foreign peers in mid-to-high-end MCUs for intelligent vehicle control

In 2024, SemiDrive further improved its E3 series product lineup, focusing on the next-generation zone control units (ZCU), and introduced a ZCU cooperative solution targeting core application scenarios in zonal EEA, including body control, body + chassis + power cross-domain integration, and super power domain control. Using CPU/NVM and available GPIO as transverse and longitudinal axes, this portfolio includes the E3119, E3620B, E3650, and E3800.

Third Tier: E3650

Balance computing power, storage, high functionality, low power consumption, low communication latency, and ring network capabilities, making it the preferred choice in 48V domain controller platforms. It can also be paired with first-tier products.

Feature a multi-core high-compute cluster, the largest number of available GPIOs on the market, leading virtualized mass-production experience, hardware-level communication engine SSDPE, and multi-channel Gbit transmission capacity.

Fourth Tier: E3800

Super power domain integration, featuring more scenario-specific acceleration co-processors and more advanced high-speed interfaces.

Among them, the flagship MCU product for intelligent control, E3650, is specifically designed for application scenarios such as zone control units (ZCU) and domain control units (DCU).

Nearly a 40% surge in computing power, and a 30% expansion in storage capacity: It adopts the latest ARM Cortex R52+ high-performance lockstep multi-core cluster, with main frequency up to 600MHz, the highest in its class, and packs the largest storage capacity in the same tier.

30% more available peripherals and GPIOs: It integrates multiple peripheral BOM devices and is configured with the largest number of available GPIOs on the market, significantly reducing various peripheral IO expansion chips required for the system.

50% improvement in low-power performance: It features a built-in hardware communication acceleration engine that offloads communication task processing in domain control, reducing packet loss and latency while significantly lowering the load on the main CPU.

Ceiling-level information security protection: It integrates the SemiDrive Xuanwu Ultra-Secure HSM (Hardware Security Module), and supports OEMs' customized and complex encryption/decryption algorithms. It complies with ISO 21434, Evita Full, and higher information security standards, and meets both domestic and overseas high-level security standards.

Additionally, E3650 has been specifically optimized for virtualization (Hypervisor) support on MCU systems, offering a production-ready virtual solution to help OEMs achieve efficient business isolation and code integration. E3650 not only covers four core application scenarios of intelligent driving/intelligent cockpit, power domain control, VMC chassis domain control, and zone control unit, but also reduces BOM costs by nearly 60% (varying by system design) thanks to its higher integration level. Currently, E3650 has officially begun customer sampling and has been designated by multiple leading OEMs.

RISC-V architecture is bringing new opportunities in automotive MCU market, and Chinese players work to build an independent, controllable supply chain.

Core architectures for automotive MCUs are relatively diverse. Mainstream ARM architecture-based processors currently dominate the global market in intelligent cockpits, vehicle entertainment, and ADAS, but their percentage in body domain controller, chassis, and powertrain applications is relatively small, where Power PC and Infineon TriCore architectures prevail.

With the rise of the new open-source RISC-V architecture, Chinese and foreign IP suppliers have launched over a dozen series of automotive-grade IPs, covering general-purpose, high-performance MCUs and security chip IPs, and basically meeting current demand for automotive control chips. On this basis, chip vendors are now developing high-performance RISC-V chips for body, powertrain, and chassis applications.

RISC-V is an open, reduced instruction set computer (RISC)-based instruction set architecture (ISA) designed to serve as a general-purpose computer architecture. Embracing an open-source design philosophy, RISC-V allows anyone to view, use, modify, and distribute its design. The goal is to provide a flexible, scalable, and high-performance computer architecture suitable for a wide range of applications. Key benefits include low development threshold, low licensing costs, high software portability, independent controllability, and flexibility and customization capabilities for proprietary chips.

China is striving to develop RISC-V architecture MCUs. Companies like HPMicro, Nanjing Cercis Semiconductor, Wuhan Binary Semiconductor, Chipext, and ESWIN Computing are facilitating the deployment of RISC-V-based MCUs in vehicles and expanding the application areas.

HPMicro: Andes Technology, Jingwei HiRain, and HPMicro have collaborated to integrate the AndesCoreT RISC-V processor series, HPMicro's full range of HPM6200 products, and Jingwei HiRain's Vehicle OS software platform solution to jointly build a RISC-V ecosystem in automotive chips. HPMicro has completed ISO 9001 quality management certification and ISO 26262 ASIL D functional safety management system certification. The full HPM6200 product line has passed AEC-Q100 Grade 1 certification, with an operating temperature range of -40C to 125C.

Cercis Semiconductor: The Cercis M100 achieves a CoreMark score of up to 2.42 (CPU performance), actual benchmark results of up to 2.42 Coremark/MHz, and quicker overall response. It meets automotive ASIL-B requirements, supports Chinese cryptographic standards (SM2/3/4) with its hardware security module (HSM), and complies with the ISO 21434 cybersecurity standard. Great Wall Motor plans to widely adopt the chip in its multiple vehicle models, expected to be no less than 2.5 million units over the next five years.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Definition of Automotive MCUs

• Definition of Automotive MCUs
• Structure of Automotive MCUs
• Classification of Automotive MCUs
• Applications of Automotive MCUs
• Demand Structure of Automotive MCUs by Application
• Status Quo of Automotive MCUs
• Development Trends of Automotive MCUs
• Automotive MCU Production Primarily Relies on OEM
• Performance Comparison between Automotive MCUs in Automotive and Industry Fields
• Yield Rate of Automotive MCUs
• Market Size
• MCU Usage Per Vehicle
• Price of Automotive MCUs
• Global Automotive MCU Market Size, 2024-2028E
• China Passenger Car MCU Market Size, 2022-2028E
• Demand Structure of Automotive MCUs by Application
• China's Domestic Automotive MCUs Applied Are Primarily Mid-to-Low-End Products
• Competitive Pattern
• Global Automotive MCU Market Competitive Pattern
• Automotive MCU Market Player 1: Traditional Automotive Chip Vendors
• Automotive MCU Market Player 2: OEMs
• Product Line Layout of Major Automotive MCU Vendors
• Benchmarking between Chinese and Foreign Automotive MCU Products
• Development Process and Costs of Automotive MCUs
• MCU Development Process
• Total Development Cost of Automotive MCUs
• Development Cost Structure of Automotive MCUs
• Breakdown of Automotive MCU Development Costs

2 Automotive Microcontroller Unit (MCU) Industry Trends

• Statistics on Automotive MCU Models Integrating AI Compute
• Layout of Major MCU Vendors in Graphics Processing Capabilities
• Comparison of Flash Execution Efficiency between MCUs with Real-Time Control
• Layout of MCU Vendors in New Storage Technologies
• Definition of Automotive MCU Cores
• Automotive MCU Core
• Automotive RISC-V IP
• Process Nodes and Foundry Layout of Automotive MCU Vendors

3 Application of Automotive Microcontroller Units (MCUs) by OEMs

• Impacts of Automotive EEA Evolution on MCUs
• How to Make a Breakthrough in Automotive MCUs in New Automotive Market Pattern
• Demand for Zone Control Units and Domain Control Units Grows Amid EEA Evolution
• EEA Evolution Poses Higher Requirements for Main MCUs
• Impact 1 of EEA Evolution on MCUs
• Impact 2 of EEA Evolution on MCUs
• Factors Considered by OEMs in Selecting MCUs
• Factor Considered by OEMs in Selecting MCUs
• Statistics on Some MCU Models Selected by OEMs
• Tesla
• XPeng
• BMW
• Great Wall Motor
• Volkswagen

4 Major Application Scenarios of Automotive Microcontroller Units (MCUs)

• OEMs' MCU Application Scenario 1: Central Domain/Integrated Domain
• OEMs' MCU Application Scenario 2: Intelligent Driving Domain
• OEMs' MCU Application Scenario 3: Cockpit Domain
• OEMs' MCU Application Scenario 4: Power and Chassis Domain
• OEMs' MCU Application Scenario 5: Body Domain
• OEMs' MCU Application Scenario 6: Zone Control Units

5 Chinese Automotive MCU Vendors

• SemiDrive
• BYD Semiconductor
• C*Core Technology
• GigaDevice
• ChipON
• Sine Microelectronics
• Hangshun Chip
• NOVOSENSE Microelectronics
• Geehy Microelectronics
• Chipsea
• Sanechips
• MCUs
• CVA CHIP
• Flagchip
• Cmsemicon
• HPMicro
• ChipEXT
• Linko Semiconductor
• Chipways
• OmniVision
• Hisilicon

6 Foreign Automotive MCU Vendors

• Renesas
• NXP
• STMicroelectronics
• Infineon
• TI
• Microchip

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/q87hwz

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