On March 28, 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released the Guidelines for the Establishment of the National Automotive Chip Standardization System (Draft for Comments). The document, which aims at guiding and regulating the R&D and matching application of automotive chips, was open for comments until 28 April 2023.

The document elaborates on the structure of the automotive chip standardization system as below: 

In addition to the standard system, some key facts include:

·   The document includes a list of 76 standards/standard projects. Among these, 59 are sector standards and 17 are national standards.

·   Only one of the standards listed has been published: QC/T 1136-2020 Environmental test requirements and test methods of IGBT Module for electric vehicles (issued by MIIT and has come into force on April 1, 2023).

·   One standard is confirmed to adopt international standard ISO 26262.11 Road vehicles — Functional safety — Part 11: Guidelines on application of ISO 26262 to semiconductors and has submitted for standard project approval. The relation with international standards of other ones remains unknown for now.

·   The rest of the standard in the list are under preliminary research and yet to be formulated.

Foreign stakeholders are recommended to closely track the dynamics of three technical committees, namely TC599 on Integrated Circuits (newly-established), TC114 on Road Vehicle, and TC78 on Semiconductor Devices: these are expected to be the main platforms for the development of automotive chips standards. In addition，it is advised to observe the updates of standards, because these standards not only outlines the future standardization direction, but also may impact the market access of vehicle chips.