Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, said that a very interesting trend has emerged in the automotive industry in the AI era - "on the road" refers to smart cars; "flying up" refers to flying cars and low-altitude industries; and "standing up" refers to humanoid robots and embodied intelligence.

In the industrial wave set off by the two hot tracks of "flying cars" and "humanoid robots", chips are like the key "winner" in the emerging technology field, ushering in a new round of changes and opportunities.

It is worth noting that this is not only a stage for international giants to compete, but also ignites the enthusiasm and fighting spirit of many domestic chip companies, trying to seize the initiative in the future competition landscape.

Opportunities in the chip industry

Flying cars are booming, and the chip industry is experiencing a new trend

In 2021, "low-altitude economy" was included in the "National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline" for the first time, and then it was positioned as a strategic emerging industry in 2023, and was written into the government work report for the first time in 2024. Then, many local governments successively issued relevant policies, and the capital market paid wide attention and favor.

"Low-altitude economy" has become one of the hottest fields in recent years, and 2024 is called the "first year of low-altitude economy".

Against this background, "flying cars" as the core carrier of low-altitude economy have become the hottest new track, attracting many car companies and technology companies to flock in.

In January 2025, Xiaopeng Huitian, a subsidiary of Xiaopeng Motors, demonstrated its split flying car "land aircraft carrier" at CES in North America, and announced that it had received more than 3,000 advance booking orders; GAC Group officially launched the new flying car brand "Govy" in December last year, and released the brand's first product AirJet.

Geely Group has also been active. It not only acquired the world's first flying car company, Terrafugia, but also successfully completed a public demonstration flight of the AE200 tilt-rotor eVTOL verification aircraft developed by its brand Wofei Changkong in October last year.

In addition, many car companies including Chery, Changan, Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, Porsche, etc. are also continuing to follow up on the layout of flying cars in order to gain an advantage in this emerging industry.

According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 200 flying car projects under development worldwide. The development of flying cars has shown a flourishing trend, with continuous technological breakthroughs and gradually mature products, and is gradually moving towards a new stage of commercial application.

It can be seen that the flying car industry is booming and has become one of the hottest outlets at the moment.

The automobile industry, which is in the transition period, must speed up its pace and increase investment in technology research and development and product innovation to cope with increasingly fierce market competition. So why are many car companies "distracted" at this time and throw themselves into the arms of flying cars?

Luo Jun, executive director of the China Low-altitude Economic Alliance, said that smart cars and flying cars have commonalities in technology, the industrial chain and production and manufacturing links are highly overlapped, and the market is intertwined. In fact, it is the only way for the traditional automobile industry to undergo a revolutionary transformation.

In terms of technology, flying cars are highly integrated products like cars. Flying cars are also inseparable from the support of electrification and intelligent technology. They not only integrate key technologies such as the "three electrics" of new energy vehicles, intelligent driving, networked communications, and lightweight, but also involve multiple fields such as aviation and artificial intelligence. It is essentially the concept of "car +".

Some industry experts said that about 80% of China's supply chain in the field of flying cars relies on automobiles, especially the industrial foundation of new energy vehicles. In terms of large-scale production and manufacturing, car companies have mature production systems and supply chain resources, which can effectively enable flying cars to improve production efficiency and reduce production costs.

This can also be seen from the progress of industry manufacturers.

In less than two years, Wofei Changkong successfully launched its first aircraft from scratch. Guo Liang, CEO of Wofei Changkong, once admitted that Geely Auto played a key role in the supply chain complementation of the whole process. For example, the charging system currently used by Wofei Changkong comes from Geely's Zeekr brand, including its advanced charging piles and 800V high-voltage charging technology. In addition, the "three-electric system" of eVTOL and new energy vehicles has a sharing rate of up to 70% in the supply chain.

Relying on Xiaopeng Motors' deep accumulation in supply chain, autonomous driving and power technology, Xiaopeng Huitian has achieved collaborative sharing of technical resources in multiple fields.

After an in-depth analysis of its BOM cost structure, German eVTOL company Lilium found that in the whole machine, the value of the motor, motor controller and power generation device rotor accounted for up to 40%, which was significantly overlapped with the new energy vehicle industry chain.

These actual cases further confirm that flying cars and new energy vehicles share a similar industry chain. With the help of the mature system of the new energy vehicle industry chain, reliable technical support and supply chain guarantee can be provided for flying cars.

Behind this synergy, not only does it provide unique conditions for car companies to enter the low-altitude economy, but it also creates new development opportunities for upstream chip manufacturers.

For example, Nvidia, the global AI chip giant, can provide powerful computing capabilities for flying cars, including high-performance AI chips and advanced algorithms, supporting complex autonomous driving and flight control tasks with its strong technical strength in the field of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving chips.

Xiaopeng Motors independently developed the world's first Turing AI chip that can be used in AI cars, AI robots and flying cars at the same time, claiming that it can achieve the effect of "one chip for three chips" and provide core computing support for the intelligent driving and flight control of Xiaopeng flying cars.

Intel continues to expand its technical capabilities in the field of autonomous driving and Internet of Things chips through acquisitions and research and development, and is expected to provide high-performance, low-power chip solutions for flying cars. Qualcomm, relying on its advantages in the field of communication chips, is committed to creating high-speed and stable communication connection solutions for flying cars to achieve efficient communication between flying cars and the outside world.

It is also worth noting that in the complex system of flying cars, analog and mixed-signal chips are like "invisible wings" and also play a vital role. Although they are not as eye-catching as high-computing AI chips, they silently support the various functions of flying cars behind the scenes, from perception, control to energy management, running through every key link of flying cars.

Domestic manufacturers

The trend of flying car chips is coming, and domestic manufacturers may have great potential

The rise of flying cars has brought unprecedented opportunities to the chip industry, especially attracting the attention of many automotive chip companies.

Take Naxinwei as an example. As a leading domestic analog and mixed-signal chip manufacturer, it has been deeply deployed in the field of automotive electronics for many years, focusing on products such as sensors, signal chains, and power management. It covers multiple categories such as sensors, driver chips, power chips, interfaces and isolators, as well as a series of signal chain products. It has been widely used in many key applications such as new energy three-electric, thermal management, body control, and smart cockpits, providing solid chip support for the intelligent and electrified upgrades of automobiles.

Today, facing the emerging track of flying cars full of potential, domestic automotive chip manufacturers including Naxinwei, relying on their long-term technical accumulation and product experience in the automotive field, are expected to continue to play an important role in the application of flying cars and inject new vitality into the development of the industry.

Specifically, facing the extensive demand for chips from flying cars, Naxinwei can provide a series of key chip solutions for the electric drive system, DC-DC, battery management system, and thermal management system of flying cars.

Like smart cars, flying cars also need to rely on cameras, radars, and various sensors to sense the surrounding environment and system parameters, and transmit this information to the controller for processing to keep the flying car stable. In order to meet the high-speed video signal transmission from the camera to the display screen and ensure the clarity and real-time nature of the image and video data, the demand for high-speed, low-latency communication interface chips such as SerDes and automotive Ethernet is increasing day by day. At present, Naxinwei's SerDes chip has been developed and is working closely with the industry's leading customers to conduct relevant system testing and verification. At the same time, Naxinwei's Flyback (NSR2240x), LDO (NSR31xxx, NSR33xxx, NSR35xxx) and other power management chips can provide stable power conversion and voltage stabilization functions, efficiently manage the power distribution and conversion of flying cars, meet the voltage requirements of different components of flying cars, and ensure that each system has a stable and reliable power supply. Its NSR3x series of LDO products are designed for automotive battery-powered systems. Their wide input voltage range, ultra-low static power consumption, multiple protection functions and packaging forms provide engineers with new choices in the development of power modules for in-vehicle applications.

Electric drive system

As we all know, the electric drive system is the core of the flying car, and undertakes important tasks such as power electronic conversion, motor control and energy management. The system can use sensors to sample parameters such as current, voltage, and temperature, and can achieve efficient drive control of the motor through gate drive and motor drive, ensuring the stable and reliable power output of the electric drive system of the flying car, and improving the motion performance and response speed of the equipment.

Naxinwei has been laying out its layout in sensors for a long time. Its Hall sensors (NSM203x, NSM2020, NSM2115, NSM2117, MT83xx, MT89xx), temperature sensors (NST235-Q1, NST86-Q1, NST175-Q1), pressure sensors (NSC9262, NSC9260x, NSC9264) and position sensors (NSM1013, NSM3012, NSM3011, MT65xx, MT6835), etc., play an important role in various systems of flying cars. They can accurately monitor various operating parameters of flying cars in real time, such as position, air pressure, temperature, speed, voltage and current parameters, and amplify the signals through amplifiers (NSI1300/1311/1200, NSOPA9xxx/8xxx). They have the characteristics of high precision and high reliability, providing important data support for flight control.

In the electric drive system, Naxinwei can also provide various chips including gate drive, motor drive chip, power chip, magnetic encoder, CAN interface chip, resolver digital converter, etc. Among them, high-voltage isolation drive chip plays a vital role in the stability and reliability of motor controller. Naxinwei can provide intelligent drive chips with various performance and safety levels such as NSI6611, NSI6651, NSI67xx, NSI6911, etc.

Power management chip BMS

The power management chip BMS is also the core of the flying car battery system. Its main function is to accurately manage the battery charging and discharging process, and to perform key functions such as safety monitoring and diagnosis to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the battery and extend the battery life.

The solid-state relay NSI7258 designed by Naxinwei for high-voltage measurement and insulation monitoring in the BMS system can provide industry-leading voltage resistance and EMI performance. Compared with standard optocoupler relays, it has higher reliability and aging performance, wider operating temperature range, shorter turn-on and turn-off delays and other performance advantages, and is suitable for replacing mechanical relays and optocoupler relays in high-reliability systems such as flying cars.

In addition, in multiple systems of flying cars, interface chips and isolation components are also required to ensure the stability and isolation of signal transmission. In this regard, Naxinwei has interfaces and isolation components such as CAN transceiver (NCA1043 (B), NCA1145, NCA1042 (B)/NCA1044, NCA1051A), Isolator (NSI824x, NSI822x), etc., which can make the communication between the various systems of the flying car smooth, the data transmission accurate, and enhance the overall performance of the system.

In the circuit protection and voltage reference part, Naxinwei also has MCU monitor/voltage reference source (such as NSR7808), Reference (NSREF30xx/31xx), NSE34050 high-side switch and bottom-side switch (NSE11409, NSD12409, NSD11/2416) and other products to achieve circuit protection, voltage reference setting and monitoring, providing important basis for system operation status monitoring and fault diagnosis.

DC-DC and thermal management controller

The DC-DC chip and thermal management controller are responsible for energy conversion and temperature control in flying cars, respectively, and play a key role in optimizing the energy efficiency of flying cars and ensuring the stable operation of the system.

In the field of DC-DC drive for DC chargers, Naxinwei has isolated half-bridge drivers NSI6602V, NSI6622V, single-channel isolated drivers (NSI6601, NSI6601M, NSI6801) and NSD1026V non-isolated drivers based on its system topology characteristics. From half-bridge isolated drivers to half-bridge drivers + Miller clamps, as well as single-channel drivers and non-isolated drivers, we can better provide customers with corresponding product solutions.

The DC-DC chip in the power supply system can convert the voltage output by the battery into different voltage levels required by various electronic devices, achieving efficient energy distribution and utilization. Naxin Micro's flyback power supply chip NSR2240x can convert the voltage output by the battery into different voltage levels required by various electronic devices, realize efficient energy distribution and utilization, improve the energy utilization efficiency of flying cars, reduce energy consumption, and extend the range.

The thermal management system is like a "temperature control brain" that controls the overall situation of the flying car. Through sensors distributed in various key parts, it monitors the temperature changes of components such as batteries, motors, and inverters in real time. Once the temperature is found to be abnormally high or low, the thermal management system uses high/low side switches and related controllers to adjust the temperature of various components of the flying car.

Naxin Micro also has in-depth layout in thermal management applications, including discrete motor drives (NSD731x, NSD83xx) and integrated SoC product NSUC16xx solutions.

For example, the NSD731x series of Naxin Micro is a driver chip for high-current BDC motors. The structure includes an H-bridge and current detection, fault detection, and SPI configuration functions, and the NSD7312 supports PWM current modulation, which means that during the motor startup process, when the load has a large capacitance or stalls, it can effectively reduce the peak current and reduce the impact on the system caused by excessive transient current.

At the same time, since the current mainstream application of new energy vehicles is mainly based on a combination of multiple multi-way valves, the driver chip is also evolving towards integration, that is, a single chip drives multiple multi-way valves. Naxin Micro's NSD8308 is an 8-channel driver chip that can support multiple motors to run simultaneously, sequentially or in parallel mode, and supports forward, reverse, slow decay and fast decay operations.

However, in addition to meeting the needs of stepper motor drive from the number of channels, stepper motors have higher precision requirements than BDC motors, so it is usually necessary to integrate a subdivider in the driver chip to improve control accuracy. The NSD8381 from Naxin Micro is a dedicated driver chip for automotive-grade high-precision two-phase bipolar stepper motors. It has four built-in half bridges and supports a maximum full-scale current of 1.35A, including current chopping regulation, a micro-step converter up to 1/32, and a variety of attenuation mode options to make the stepper motor move smoothly.

In addition, BLDC drives are currently mostly used in automotive thermal management systems, and customers consider BLDC driver chips based on integrated control more when selecting. In this regard, the NSUC1610 and NSUC1602 launched by Naxin Micro are one of the core SoC products that opened up the automotive thermal management market earlier in China, and are also the key to benchmarking international mainstream products.

In terms of integration, the NSUC1610 uses a processor with a Cortex M3 core and integrates a pre-drive function. In addition, it also integrates the LIN bus physical layer, low-power MOS tube array, DAC and dual-channel temperature sensor, can be directly powered by 12V, and supports 40V short-term overvoltage tolerance; in addition, the NSUC1602 new product recently released by Naxinwei can support high-current demand scenarios through the integrated SoC + separate power device MOSFET, and is tailored for related applications and customer needs to create a set of highly integrated SoC solutions.

Overall, Naxinwei not only has a comprehensive chip solution, but also has a complete quality management system. This has become the core guarantee for Naxinwei to achieve good results in the automotive field, and its products have entered the supply system of many well-known companies. Focusing on automotive applications to develop products and the idea of customized products for the industry leaders is expected to enable it to penetrate from the layout of the automotive electronics field to the flying car field.

Smart cars must not only "fly up", but also "stand up"

In addition to flying cars, humanoid robots are also a hot track that the technology community is currently paying attention to.

As Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary general of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Association, said, the automotive industry has seen a very interesting trend in the era of artificial intelligence - "on the road" is smart cars; "flying up" is flying cars and low-altitude industries; "standing up" is humanoid robots and embodied intelligence.

On the stage of the 2025 Spring Festival Gala, a group of humanoid robots wearing flowery jackets, holding flowery silk, and happily dancing with real dancers became the focus of hot discussions, and also allowed more people to intuitively feel the charm and potential of humanoid robots.

In fact, long before the Spring Festival Gala, humanoid robots had quietly become a hot topic in the field of science and technology, and car companies have entered the market, making this track even hotter.

As a leader in the field of new energy vehicles, Tesla launched the humanoid robot Optimus a few years ago, dedicated to creating an intelligent partner that can fully understand the environment, efficiently perform tasks, and live in harmony with humans. Musk even said that Tesla's focus in the future will tend to humanoid robots, aiming to achieve large-scale mass production as soon as possible.

Domestic car companies are not willing to lag behind. More than a dozen car companies, including Xiaopeng Motors, GAC, BYD, Chery, Xiaomi, Seres, SAIC, Changan, and Dongfeng, have also gradually entered the market and made efforts in the field of humanoid robots.

The reason why car companies are so keen to enter the humanoid robot track is similar to that of entering the flying car field: on the one hand, they see the future potential and value of the industry; on the other hand, "technology homology, industry overlap, and market interweaving" is its core driving force.

It can be said that humanoid robots and smart cars are highly homologous at the technical level. Taking Tesla as an example, the visual perception technology and algorithms accumulated in the field of autonomous driving are also applied to the humanoid robot Optimus, enabling it to quickly and accurately identify the surrounding environment and objects. In terms of motion control and human-computer interaction, the technical accumulation of car companies in the fields of chassis tuning, power system control, and smart cockpit can also provide important support for the interaction and motion control of humanoid robots.

It can be seen that the two are in the same vein at the technical level.

From the perspective of the supply chain, there is a large overlap between manufacturing cars and manufacturing robots. Automotive supply chain companies already have mature technology and production capabilities, which can provide strong support for the development of humanoid robots and improve their production efficiency and product quality.

These have become important reasons for attracting car companies to join the game. Goldman Sachs predicts that the global market size of humanoid robots will increase to US$37.8 billion in 2035, with a CAGR compound growth rate of 63.98%, far exceeding the compound growth rate of 37.9% in the new energy vehicle market industry, and the future market space has huge potential.

In this humanoid robot boom, all links in the industrial chain are expected to accelerate opportunities, and Nanochip has also demonstrated unique advantages and competitiveness.

As a highly universal, integrated and intelligent embodied intelligence, humanoid robots require excellent motion control, perception and computing capabilities. Dexterous hands, lead screws, reducers, sensors, motors, controllers, etc. are all high-value links that deserve special attention, and they also put forward extremely high requirements for the performance and functions of chips.

Nanochip, which has been deeply involved in the field of automotive chips for a long time, may also provide rich chip solutions for humanoid robots in the process of penetrating into the flying car market.

In the perception system and drive system, Naxinwei covers a variety of sensors for collecting key physical quantities. Hall sensors (NSM201x, NSM211x, NSM203x, MT951x, NSM2311), isolation amplifiers (NSI1400, NSI1300, NSI1200C, NSI1312, NSI1311), amplifiers (NSOPA9xxx, NSOPA8xxx, NSOPA084) is used for current and voltage sampling; NST1001, NST1002, NSHT3x and other temperature and humidity sensors are used to monitor temperature and humidity; magnetic angle sensors (NSM301x, MT65xx, MT6835, MT6826s), linear position sensors (MT910x), switch position sensors (MT83xx, MT89xx) obtain angle and position information; NSA/C9260x, NSA/C2860x and other pressure sensors are used to measure pressure, comprehensively collecting the output and input data of the robot's internal system operation, providing complete and powerful data support for the robot's operation, and forming a complete robot closed-loop system.

In 2024, Nasin Micro completed the acquisition of magnetic sensor company Magtron, which can complement the existing sensor products, greatly enrich Nasin Micro's product categories and product solutions in this field, effectively enhance its competitiveness in the magnetic sensor market, and provide stronger support for the humanoid robot business.

In terms of motion control, the gate drivers such as NSD262x and NSD1224 launched by Nasin Micro play a key role in motor drive control, and can accurately control the joint motors of humanoid robots to ensure that the robots can efficiently and stably complete various actions. These chips have the characteristics of high power density, low noise, and high precision. They can provide stable drive signals for motors, realize precise control of motor speed and torque, ensure efficient and stable operation of motors, and realize smooth execution of various complex actions of robots.

The head and visual control part is dominated by MCU, which uses PWM signals to control motor drive and motor operation. Through the current sensing capability of the Hall sensor, combined with angle sensors, position sensors, etc., precise control of head movements and stable support for visual information acquisition are achieved.

For the power management of humanoid robots, Naxinwei's power management products include LDO (NSR31/33/35xxx), Flyback (NSR284x, NSR28C4x), BUCK (NSR10Axx, NSR104xx, NSR106xx, NSR114xx, NSR1103x) and other power management chips, which can accurately monitor the battery power, voltage and current parameters, realize efficient charging and discharging management of the battery, extend the battery life and endurance, and provide adaptive stable power supply for various components of the robot to meet the voltage requirements of different modules and ensure the normal operation of the system.

In the field of communication, RS485 (NSI83086, NSI83085, NCA3176, NSIP83086) and CAN (NCA1051A, NCA1042B, NSIP1042, NSI1050, NSI1042) of Naxinwei are used for communication connection between various components inside the robot, and NSI82xx series isolators are used to ensure the stability and anti-interference of communication. Its I/O Expander is used to expand the input and output interface, the voltage monitoring element NSR7808 performs voltage monitoring and system protection, and the NSREF30/31xx series voltage reference source provides reference voltage to ensure stable and reliable operation of the system and provide reference support for other components.

Overall, humanoid robots have a high overlap and reuse industry chain with new energy smart cars. In the future, a huge industrial cluster driving effect will be formed, promoting new changes and growth opportunities in the chip industry.

Conclusion

As mentioned above, the automotive industry will present two major trends: "flying up" and "standing up". The key technologies of electrification and intelligence will spill over to the low-altitude economy and embodied intelligence industry, creating more opportunities for the development of the automotive industry. At the same time, the research and development of flying cars and humanoid robots can feed back the technological progress of the automotive industry in electrification, intelligence, lightweight, etc., and drive the development of related industrial chains.

In this process, automotive supply chain manufacturers benefit from this, and the chip industry will usher in unprecedented growth opportunities.

And over the years, based on the deep cultivation in the field of automotive electronics, Naxinwei has the opportunity to have a deep understanding of the technical needs and application scenarios of emerging flying cars and humanoid robots, laying a solid technical foundation and customer resources for entering this field.

Source: Semiconductor Industry Observer

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