LX Semicon said on Sunday it has started mass production of its motor-control microcontroller unit, the LX61101, and begun supplying it to Hyundai Motor and Kia. It said the move marks its first achievement in automotive MCUs that it has been fostering as a new business, and the first domestically produced MCU to be installed in Hyundai and Kia vehicles.

The LX61101 is a semiconductor that controls, in real time, motor speed and position, rotation direction and torque in a vehicle body electronics system. Based on a 40MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core, it delivers stable and precise control performance. It is used for a safety feature that reopens a window when an obstacle is detected during automatic closing, and for systems that control vehicle aerodynamics. It will be applied first to vehicles Hyundai and Kia produce from the second half of this year, and the range of supplied models will gradually expand.

LX Semicon has so far focused its business on display ICs. Since 2022, it has started fostering automotive MCUs as a future growth axis to respond to supply chain reshuffling in the global auto industry and the electrification trend. It expanded its business scope based on technological capabilities accumulated in home appliance MCUs.

The LX61101 secured an award in April 2023 after being selected in March 2023 in Hyundai and Kia's process to choose a new supplier for a motor-function-optimised MCU. After about 3 years of development and quality tests, it succeeded in mass production. In the process, it also met AEC-Q100, a reliability standard for automotive semiconductors, and ISO 26262, a functional safety standard.

An LX Semicon official said the company will foster automotive MCUs over the medium to long term and expand its product lineup beyond control chips to include communications, driving, sensor and power products. The official said it will broaden the company's growth opportunities through automotive semiconductors and contribute to expanding the base of domestic industry. The global automotive MCU market in 2025 is estimated at about 15.5 trillion won.