An employee checks a printed circuit board containing integrated circuit microchips at CSI Electronic Manufacturing Services Ltd. in Witham, the UK, on April 28, 2021. Photo: VCG

A Chinese technology firm announced on Tuesday that they developed a 7-nanometer auto chip which could supplement the country's auto chip supplies, local media reported. 

SiEngine Technology Co, based in Hubei Province and owned by Chinese auto manufacturer Geely Group, announced that the company had developed a 7-nanometer intelligent car cockpit control chip SE1000, the Hubei Daily reported on Tuesday. 

The manager of SiEngine Technology Co in Wuhan, Hubei, said the SE1000 auto chip will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2021, and he forecasts that testing on vehicles will be done in 2022, said the report. 

Chinese auto chip makers are advancing R&D to generate high-end auto chips, which has been dominated by foreign suppliers including German's Infineon Technologies and Japan's Mitsubishi Electric, analysts said. 

"It is relatively easier to design the 7-nanometer auto chip than to produce it," Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told Global Times on Tuesday. He noted that there are only a few companies that have grasped the technology to produce 7-nanometer semiconductors. 

Data shows that Chinese carmakers imports 90 to 95 percent of their chips from abroad. Xiang believed that the estimated mass production of SE1000 may boost China's competiveness in the global auto chip race.

Global Times