Xiaomi partners with vehicle MCU company YTMicro with strategic investments

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China's tech giant Xiaomi, who recently joined the intelligent automaking industry, has entered into a strategic agreement with China's auto-grade MCU company, YTMicro, whose latest financing round got funds from Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund, Xiaomi's joint venture with the Hubei provincial government.

the YTM32B1L chip; photo credit: YTMicro

According to the agreement, the financing will be put into developing YTMicro’s auto-grade MCU, the relevant vehicle application, and the market layout for the product.

Auto-grade MCU is a core semiconductor component in vehicle manufacturing. This component's usage is massive, with an average of 70 pieces used per traditional car and even twofold in smart cars.

As an integrated circuit design company, YTMicro has over 20 years of experience in developing high-performance and safe auto-grade MCU chips. The company successfully filed patents for several self-developed vehicle chips.

YTMicro’s chairman, Wang Jianzhong stated, that the company’s future will revolve around the smart, electric, connected, and sharing of new-generation vehicles. YTMicro aims to expand its business layout by using MCU chips on ADAS, domain controller, vehicle connected gateway, intelligent cabin, and autonomous driving. In the future, the company plans on bringing in more partners to fast-track the progress of its chip mass production.

As of now, two Xiaomi-backed venture capital companies, namely Yangtze River Xiaomi Industry Fund and Shunwei Capital have invested in over 20 chip manufacturers. Several of the investees are in line for an IPO, if not already, including Silicon Integrated, GalaxyCore, ASR Microelectronics, and Kiwi Instruments.