BYD leverages in-house semiconductors to power next phase of automotive intelligence; smart driving chip roadmap moves towards 4nm SoC

DIGITIMES notes that BYD Semiconductor's portfolio has expanded from the IGBTs and SiC power chips developed to meet early electric vehicle (EV) demand into high-computing-power smart-driving SoCs, reflecting BYD's automotive business shift from the electrification-first first half to the intelligence-driven second half. With more than 20 years of chip R&D and manufacturing experience, along with the group's massive vehicle and smart-driving shipment scale, BYD is steadily strengthening its capabilities in in-house chip development, in-house production, and mass-production deployment for automotive use. As the Xuanji A3 enters car-grade 4-nm-scaled production, the company's chip strategy is shifting from power control to core smart-driving computing. It could also extend in the future to physical AI applications such as humanoid robots.

Looking at BYD Semiconductor's development history, the company has accumulated about 24 years since setting up its IC design division in 2002 through 2026, with its focus gradually shifting from power semiconductors for EVs to smart-driving SoCs. On the manufacturing side, BYD has built wafer fabs with 6-inch, 8-inch, and 12-inch lines, and has established an R&D team of more than 7,000 chip engineers and more than 2,000 chip products, including 567 automotive-grade chips, forming an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) model spanning chip design, wafer fabrication, and mass-production applications.

This report covers BYD's semiconductor ventures up to this point, why it elected to develop in-house chips for its cars, and its potential applications in robotics.