Recently, 36 Krypton learned that the automotive chip company Yuxin Semiconductor received an angel round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan led by Linxin Capital. This round of financing will be mainly used for cutting-edge technology development in the field of automotive-grade chips, product technology upgrades, and high-end talents. storage, etc.
Founded in 2022, Yuxin Semiconductor is a car-grade MCU chip company. It mainly provides full-scenario chips, basic software, and component solutions under the new electrical and electronic architecture for power, chassis, engine, motor, and regional control. devices, BMS, and other scenarios.
At present, many industry players such as Jiefa Technology, Xinwangwei, Xinqing, Xinchi, Fudan Microelectronics, etc. have appeared in the car-level MCU track.
Integration of Chips
Automobiles are developing towards a centralized architecture. Under the challenge of the new electrical and electronic architecture, automobile companies have continuously increased the demand for computing power and functional integration of chips, and require multi-core heterogeneous chips with higher functional safety levels instead of simple MCUs. Chips; the cycle of car companies in the iterative design process is accelerated; and in the future, bicycles have indicators of cost reduction and efficiency increase, and it is necessary to reduce costs while improving performance.
King Kong
King Kong, the founder, and president of Yuxin Semiconductor told 36 Krypton that Yuxin Semiconductor mainly provides chips that match the innovation of electronic and electrical architectures in the next 5 to 10 years. In the design of future electronic and electrical architecture, there will be a three-layer chip architecture-the main control chip represented by the smart computing chip and the smart cockpit chip, the domain controller, and the vehicle-specific actuator at the end. Yuxin Semiconductor is committed to providing domain controllers and vehicle-level actuators that can be used in the entire vehicle.
When asked what is the difference from other companies in the market, King Kong told 36 Krypton that at present, most companies choose to cut in from the easier scenarios such as car windows, car seats, and interior ambient lights on the car body, and in the future, they will focus on power chassis involving safety. Wait for the scene to change. Yuxin Semiconductor chose to launch products for core scenarios such as chassis and power domain at the beginning, and then radiate to simple application controllers in the future.
In his view, car companies have domestic replacement needs for engine control, chassis control, power motor control, and other scenarios involving body safety, but there is no solution. In addition, car companies hope to make long-term plans for the next 5 to 10 years based on this product, and companies that can provide products with stronger performance, lower cost, and better safety have opportunities.
Entry-level Car AI MCU
In terms of specific products, the company plans to launch three series of chips - entry-level car AI MCU, mainstream car AI MCU, and high-end motion control processor, which can basically cover the needs of mainstream products on the market. The company's first entry-level car-grade AI MCU product is expected to be officially delivered to customers by the end of 2023.
Product Advantages
In terms of product advantages, King Kong told 36 Krypton: "Facing the trend of reducing costs and increasing efficiency and centrally integrated driving, car companies will need to reduce the number of parts and components, which puts forward requirements for MCU performance improvement and integration. There are great advantages in cost and cost. For products with the same price, the performance will be more than doubled. In the software space and the integration of product peripherals, one product can replace multiple products in the past.”
Yuxin Semiconductor
Yuxin Semiconductor is headquartered in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. It has three major departments the world: automotive chip design center, automotive security software design center, and automotive security application design center. They are located in California, USA, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou, China. The company has a complete team from front-end to back-end design, to production testing, and has the ability to design the whole process forward. The company has a complete design, testing, and quality traceability team, equipped with nearly 20 vehicle functional safety and vehicle network security engineers who have passed TUV testing and certification and manage internal R&D projects and customer projects.
- Yuxin Semiconductor adheres to the development idea of integrating software and hardware and will provide customers with solutions such as chips, software, and components, and provide full-link products.
- King Kong believes that in China, it is difficult for semiconductor chip design companies to provide only chips like standard chip companies, but they need to provide customers with technical software, component reference design solutions, etc. so that customers can quickly verify products and promote products to the mass production stage.
- In terms of the overall solution, Yuxin Semiconductor has developed a complete set of toolchains including compilers, emulators, and graphical configuration tools. During the project evaluation stage, it provides customers with the possibility of low-cost functional verification of chips.
Company's Research and Development
From the perspective of the company's research and development, based on the technology platform of Yuxin Semiconductor, Yuxin can provide customers with products that meet different applications based on a set of architectures, reducing the software development cost of Yuxin and shortening the research and development cycle.
In terms of the background of the founder, the founder and president of the company has more than 15 years of experience in the industry, and has rich experience in semiconductors, from design to delivery. The technology leader has led and completed the design and mass production of several world-class automotive-grade chips, especially in the development of automotive-grade 32-bit MCU products for engine control, safety systems, and power systems.
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