From M2 Communications

Chery Automobile and Freescale Semiconductor have announced plans to establish a joint automotive lab aimed at co-developing silicon, software and system-level solutions for use in Chery vehicles for Chinese and export markets.

Freescale and Chery have partnered in powertrain and engine control, including the Chery engine management system (EMS) project based on Freescale's S12XE microcontroller (MCU).

The two companies also plan to explore joint development in automotive application areas, such as body electronics, powertrain technology, hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and in-vehicle entertainment electronics.

The planned technology collaboration is expected to involve a range of Freescale MCU platforms, including Freescale's 32-bit Power Architecture MCUs, 16-bit S12X and 8-bit S08 devices, as well as analog power management ICs.

The two companies, in concert with third-party partners, plan to co-develop electronic control unit (ECU) hardware and low-level drivers, high-level software interface and modeling tools, demonstration boards, in-vehicle networking solutions, body control modules, HEV control units and more.