Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
LX Semicon supplies automotive semiconductor to Hyundai, Kia
LX Semicon's LX61101 automotive microcontroller unit / Courtesy of LX Semicon
By Nam Hyun-woo
LX Semicon has begun supplying its first automotive microcontroller unit (MCU) to Hyundai Motor and Kia, marking the first tangible achievement of its automotive semiconductor business.
The company said Monday that it has begun mass production of the LX61101, an MCU optimized for motor control in automotive body electronics. The chips will initially be used in Hyundai Motor and Kia vehicles that will go into production in the second half of this year, with applications set to gradually expand to a wider range of models.
Based on a 40-megahertz Arm Cortex-M3 core, the chip enables stable and precise motor control by monitoring speed, position, rotational direction and torque in real time.
The chip will be used in vehicle window safety systems, which automatically reverse direction when an object is detected while a window is closing, as well as in systems that control vehicle aerodynamics.
LX Semicon said the chip marks the company’s first tangible achievement in its automotive MCU business, a new growth area it has been fostering since 2022 to diversify its portfolio beyond display-related chips.
This will mark the first time Hyundai Motor and Kia use domestically manufactured MCUs in their vehicles. LX Semicon was selected as a new supplier of motor-control MCUs in 2023 and succeeded in mass-producing the LX61101 after three years of development and testing, meeting reliability and safety standards including AEC-Q100 and ISO 26262.
The company said the LX61101 was mass-produced through a supply chain involving Korean companies across the entire process, from semiconductor design and foundry production to back-end processing, setting a milestone for the domestic automotive semiconductor ecosystem.
“By fostering our automotive MCU business, LX Semicon will expand its product portfolio to include not only controllers but also chips for communications, motor drive, sensing and power management,” an LX Semicon official said.
“Through automotive semiconductors, we will broaden the company’s growth opportunities and contribute to expanding the foundations of Korea’s automotive and semiconductor industries.”
The global automotive MCU market was valued at around 15.5 trillion won ($10.96 billion) last year.