Recently, FAW Group, together with industry partners, successfully developed "Hongqi No. 1", China's first automotive-grade advanced-process multi-domain fusion chip.

In recent years, the supply shortages and price fluctuations in the global automotive-grade chip market have repeatedly driven up vehicle manufacturing costs. Procurement prices for a single MCU chip surged from just a few US dollars to nearly USD 100, while high-end high-computing-power chips have long been dominated by overseas giants. In response, FAW Group took the initiative by working with industry partners to establish a coordinated innovation mechanism between automakers and chip developers. The successful in-house development of Hongqi No. 1 reduces dependence on imported chips and provides strong support for supply-chain security.

"Hongqi No. 1" is not a conventional single-function chip, but a multi-domain fusion processor designed for the central computing architecture of intelligent vehicles. Its most notable technological feature is the integration of five major functional domains—driver assistance, smart cockpit, body and vehicle control, communications, and security—into a single chip. Functions that previously required multiple separate chips can now be consolidated, enabling true integration of "cockpit, driving, and control systems".

In logical computing capability, "Hongqi No. 1" delivers a 21.7% improvement over mainstream domain-fusion chips in the market (e.g., SA8775) and a 15.4% improvement in image-processing performance. This enables it to efficiently support complex cockpit scenarios such as "one chip, multiple screens, multiple systems operating in parallel", while reserving substantial computing headroom for future higher-level integration of intelligent cockpits and autonomous driving.

The chip also incorporates an independent security island with hardware-level isolation, supports the highest functional safety rating of ASIL-D, and meets China's Level 2 information security requirements for commercial cryptography. This means that even under extreme fault conditions, critical control signals can be maintained and system paralysis averted, providing a robust safety foundation for the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture.

According to reports, the successful development of "Hongqi No. 1" not only represents a technological breakthrough but also yields substantial industrial benefits. Through multi-domain fusion, it significantly reduces the number of electronic control units (ECUs) and wiring harness complexity, lowering overall vehicle system costs and shortening development cycles. An indigenously developed high-performance chip solution also gives automakers greater initiative amid global chip price fluctuations. Beyond serving as a high-performance, high-safety, and cost-efficient "vehicle brain" for future models, "Hongqi No. 1" is expected to drive coordinated upgrades across China's automotive-grade chip supply chain.

Source: WeChat Official Account of FAW Group, Cailian News  Editor: Liu Jiadi