Dongfeng, Freescale team up in auto electronics

Shanghai, January 23 (Gasgoo.com) Chinese automaker Dongfeng Motor Corp and U.S. Freescale Semiconductor plan to set up a joint automotive electronics design lab in China. The move aims at developing the electronic systems for next-generation vehicles for the Chinese market and for exports.

The cooperation will span a wide spectrum, ranging from body electronics to powertrain and technologies related to hybrid electric vehicles such as energy recuperation and storage. The cooperation also involves Freescale's 32-bit Power architecture implementations as well as 16- and 8-bit MCUs from the company's S12X and S08 product families.

In addition, analog circuitry connected to these applications will be provided. The cooperation also includes in-car networking, software and AUTOSAR applications.

Being one of China's top three automotive manufacturers, Dongfeng already has conducted significant R&D for engine control, hybrid drive control and automatic transmission systems. A Freescale press release said that future cooperation between the two companies could include chassis and safety technologies as well as infotainment and navigation.

"Freescale has outstanding technologies in IC integration and manufacturing," said a director of the technical center of Dongfeng Motor. He hoped that the joint lab will boost the automotive OEM's tech R&D capabilities. Dongfeng is the Chinese partner of global carmakers Peugeot Citroen, Honda, Nissan, and Kia.

Dongfeng Motor is already a customer of Freescale. The company has developed an electronic engine control system based on Freescale's MPC5xx 32-bit MCU and plans to migrate the design to the MPC563x MCU, a cost-effective MCU family optimized for "green" engine control.