On 28 March 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the Guidelines for the Establishment of the National Automotive Chip Standardization System (Draft for Comments). The document, which aims at guiding and regulating the R&D and matching application of automotive chips, was open for comments until 28 April 2023.
Automotive chips, as the core components of vehicles’ electric systems, are essential to the transformation and upgrading of automotive industry. Yet, the application scenario of automotive chips make them significantly different from other types of chips, as they have higher requirements in terms of adaptation to the environment, reliability, security, etc. In this regard, standardization becomes an effective tool for supporting the government’s efforts, and therefore has great importance. Standardization activities also benefit from the booming development of new energy vehicles in China, the application of intelligent and connected vehicles technology, as well as advancements in the coverage, technology and application of automotive chips.
The document elaborates on the structure of the automotive chip standardization system. Specifically, please refer to the figure.
In addition to the standard system, the document includes a list of 76 standards/standard projects. Among these, 59 are sector standards and 17 are national standards. All the standards listed are of voluntary implementation; but the possibility remains that these, in the future, will be cited by regulation or included as part of mandatory certification schemes, thus becoming de facto mandatory standards. Nearly the totality of the standards listed are still at the preliminary development stage, therefore their impact on market access of foreign chips is not clear at this stage. At the same time, as explicitly stated by the draft document, the list of standards may not be final. Foreign stakeholders are recommended to closely track the dynamics of three technical committees, namely TC599 on Integrated Circuits (newly-established), TC114 on Road Vehicle, and TC78 on Semiconductor Devices: these are expected to be the main platforms for the development of automotive chips standards.
