On September 20, Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motor (GWM), announced that the company’s independently developed Zijing M100 chip has been successfully lit up. Zijing M100 chip is the first automotive-grade chip developed based on the RISC-V architecture in China.
The chip “lights up” when the current passes through the chip smoothly, which means the chip is usable and can be mass-produced after subsequent testing and qualification.
RISC-V stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computing and the V represents the fifth version of the RISC architecture. RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture that defines how software and hardware interact with one another for developing custom processors. Wei Jianjun indicated that “relying on open source architecture can lessen the restriction by European and American technologies and ensure the possibility of architecture expansion.”
Zijing (紫荆) translates to the Chinese redbud plant in English. In terms of why GWM might have chose this name, the Zijing Pass is a significant pass on the Great Wall of China to resist foreign invasion.
Wu Huixiao, Vice President of Intelligent Technology at GWM, said that the Zijin M100 CoreMark reached 2.1; and that the silicon intellectual property, wafer manufacturing, and packaging testing were all done domestically in China. CoreMark is an industry-standard benchmark that measures the performance of microcontrollers (MCUs) and central processing units (CPUs) in embedded systems.
Furthermore, a Chinese blogger revealed that the first Zijing M100 chips will be deployed on the X55 headlight controller platform, covering a variety of models. Subsequently, the plan is to install the chip on no less than 2.5 million vehicles in five years. The Zijin chip series has the following product roadmap:
- Zijin M100 (body application): air conditioning control module, headlight control module, air compressor controller, wireless charging module, and head-up display
- Zijin M200 (power, chassis application): electronic stability program and electric power steering
- Zijin M300 (power, chassis and domain control application): electronic stability program, electric power steering, integrated brake control, and body control module
- Zijin S300: Central gateway
From 2021 to 2022, GWM has been plagued by chip shortages, causing GWM to reduce its production by 408,000 vehicles in 2021, accounting for 24.5% of its annual planned production, and by 210,000 vehicles in 2022, accounting for 16.5% of its annual planned production.
Source: Wei Jianjun Weibo, Sina Finance
