[News] Toyota and Other Automakers Reportedly Join Forces for the Development of Advanced Automotive Chips

In a bid to compete with rivals like Tesla, who conduct in-house research and development of advanced chips for automotive applications, Japanese automakers have reportedly established a new organization to collaboratively research and develop advanced automotive chips, integrating their technologies and designs.

According to a report by Nikkei, automakers including Toyota have established a new organization called the “Automotive SoC Research Association” (temporarily referred as ASRA), joining forces to develop advanced chips for applications like autonomous driving.

Established in December in Nagoya, ASRA is set to commence research on SoC products with a process of 10nm or more advanced nodes starting in 2024. In addition to Toyota, other automakers such as Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Subaru, and Japanese enterprises including Renesas Electronics and Socionext have also joined the initiative.

According to the report, the trend of automakers intensifying in-house development of automotive chips is growing. The report further indicates that semiconductor giants in the United States, such as NVIDIA and Qualcomm, are also developing high-performance SoCs for automotive use.

Leading electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has opted for in-house development due to dissatisfaction with limited choices, and their self-developed SoCs are already actively deployed in their vehicles.

On the other hand, Chinese automaker NIO, for example, possesses semiconductor research and development teams in both China and the United States. They have successfully developed semiconductor products used for controlling Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology.

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