Stellantis and Hon Hai Technology Form SiliconAuto to Supply Auto Industry with Semiconductor Chips
Back when the semiconductor chip shortage was causing a lot of problems for the auto industry, many automakers took a hit in their ability to fulfill production goals or put all the new planned tech into new model year vehicles. Others scrambled to find new ways to get their hands on a supply of semiconductor chips. Joining with other companies and signing agreements became the new way to ensure that an automaker had a steady supply of semiconductor chips, and Stellantis was amongst them, with agreements between Stellantis and Foxconn, and Stellantis and the Hon Hai Technology Group. The two are one and the same, which makes this new 50/50 joint venture even better – Stellantis and Hon Hai Technology Group (“Foxconn”) have announced the creation of SiliconAuto, determined to design and sell a family of state-of-the-art semiconductors to the auto industry.
“Stellantis will benefit from a robust supply of essential components, which is critical to fueling the rapid, software-defined transformation of our products…Our goal is to build vehicles that seamlessly connect with our customers’ daily lives and deliver class-leading capabilities years after they leave the assembly line. With this joint venture, we can create purpose-built innovations with an efficient partnership.” – Stellantis Chief Technology Officer Ned Curic
The Partners
We all know Stellantis by now. Born of the merger between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and the PSA Group, legally known as Peugeot S.A., Stellantis become the fourth-largest automotive group in the world. Almost immediately after the merger, the Chief Executive Officer of Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, made the call to shift towards electric automobiles before falling too far behind. This movement was strength rend even further in 2022 when Stellantis announced its Dare Forward 2030 business strategy to introduce more than 75 BEVs worldwide, with 25 of those all-new BEVs will hit the U.S. market.
Foxconn is associated with many consumer goods and brands. Known as a major supply chain in the semiconductor industry, 40-percent of all consumer electronics in the world are manufactured by Foxconn. To name a few examples, Foxconn is a name behind many devices such as the BlackBerry, Apple devices, gaming systems by Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, and several CPU sockets. When Foxconn and Stellantis entered into a joint venture, their aim was at infotainment, the integration of telecommunications and computer systems, artificial intelligence-based applications, 5G communications, e-commerce channels, and smart cockpit integration. When Hon Hai Technology Group joined as a whole, three all-new AI-powered technology platforms were announced for future models. During this time, the STLA platform was first introduced, with the STLA SmartCockpit debuting later during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show.
SiliconAuto
This new joint venture to create SiliconAuto has the sole purpose of providing companies in the auto industry a central source of semiconductors for the steadily growing number of computer-controlled features and modules. Just think of all the semiconductor chips needed for battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), software-defined vehicles (SDVs), purpose-built vehicles (PBVs), and autonomous self-driving cars. Products from SiliconAuto will be able to push forward the STLA platform, such as the Stellantis’ new electrical/electronic and software architecture STLA Brain. This will also make a lot of money for Stellantis as a major supplier of semiconductor chips, which will surely refill their pockets after all the investments through Stellantis Ventures, the corporate venture fund of Stellantis N.V.
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