On June 23, 2026, the ribbon-cutting and commissioning ceremony for Awinic's Lingang "Ink Bottle" Automotive-Grade Experiment and Testing Center—the largest automotive-grade experiment and testing center in China—was held in the Lingang New Area. Li Xiangcong, Director of the High-Tech Division at the Lingang New Area Management Committee; Weng Wei, Party Secretary and Chairman of Lingang Technology City Company; Sun Hongjun, Chairman of Awinic; and Lou Shengbo, CEO of Awinic, among other guests, took the stage to cut the ribbon and participate in the commissioning ceremony. This milestone marked the official launch of the country's largest automotive-grade experiment and testing platform, ushering in a new era for the localized validation of domestically produced high-end automotive-grade chips.
Figure 1: Government and enterprise guests jointly witness the official launch of the facility
As a leading analog and mixed-signal IC company, Awinic plans an annual chip testing scale of 30 to 50 billion units, with products spanning consumer electronics, automotive electronics, industrial connectivity, and AI hardware. The facility, with a total investment of 900 million RMB and a floor area exceeding 110,000 square meters, has become the largest automotive-grade experiment and testing center in China. The project was first unveiled at the 2023 World Design Capital Conference, and its unique "ink bottle" architectural design embodies the vision of leveraging proprietary testing technologies to drive innovation and development in China's semiconductor industry.
Figure 2: Awinic's "Ink Bottle" Lingang Automotive-Grade Experiment and Testing Center
PART 01: Consolidating Lingang's Industrial Foundation and Addressing Key Gaps in Automotive-Grade Testing
Sun Hongjun, Chairman of Awinic, stated on-site that the company will fully unleash the facility's production capacity, deepen its presence in the automotive-grade and AI chip sectors, and continuously iterate its self-developed testing equipment. Leveraging Lingang's industrial agglomeration advantages, the company aims to build an industry-sharing, high-end public testing platform for automotive-grade chips, thereby lowering the thresholds for R&D and certification of domestically produced chips.
Li Xiangcong, Director of the High-Tech Division at the Lingang Management Committee, delivered a congratulatory speech at the ceremony, highlighting the area's industrial development achievements over the past seven years: the gross industrial output value above designated size grew from 40 billion RMB in 2018 to 450 billion RMB, a complete integrated circuit (IC) industry chain has been established, and more than 160 new energy vehicle (NEV) supporting enterprises have gathered in the area. Leveraging multiple policy advantages, including geographical location, application scenarios, taxation, and the pilot free trade zone system, Lingang continues to attract leading semiconductor companies.
The Management Committee also stated that it will provide full-cycle supporting services to Awinic, allocating industrial spaces and implementing tailored policies as needed, while regularly establishing industry chain docking platforms. At the same time, it expressed the hope that the facility will serve as a benchmark for smart manufacturing, strengthen quality control for automotive-grade chips, and promote the self-reliance and control of high-end domestic automotive-grade chips.
In terms of industrial implementation benefits, the facility's annual testing capacity of 30 to 50 billion chips at full production can accommodate localized testing orders for the vast majority of domestic NEV manufacturers, smart cockpit supporting enterprises, and AI chip companies. The entire process—from sample evaluation and engineering verification to mass production compliance testing—can be completed locally in a closed loop. Market analysts believe that compared with the previous model of sending samples overseas for testing, localized one-stop verification can shorten the certification cycle for vehicle-mounted chips by over 40%, and reduce the comprehensive testing cost for a single chip by more than 35%. This will significantly lower R&D validation investments for chip design companies and greatly accelerate the iteration and deployment of domestic automotive-grade chips.
Lou Shengbo, CEO of Awinic, introduced that the company will continue to strengthen its intellectual property portfolio, having filed 164 patent applications in 2025, including 53 key patents, a 40% increase over 2024. The company's business fully covers four core tracks: consumer mobile phones, automotive, industrial connectivity, and edge AI, with breakthroughs in large-scale implementations for leading domestic and international brands in each field. In the consumer mobile phone segment, the company deeply supports mass production adoption in flagship models of major brands. In the automotive field, all five major product lines—automotive audio, ambient lighting, RF, haptic motors, and power & signal chain—have achieved mass production and deployment. In the industrial connectivity sector, the company covers diverse niche markets, including embodied robots, security, healthcare, home appliances, PCs, and drones, securing numerous industry-leading clients. Additionally, the company has made forward-looking deployments in edge AI, a future core track, with AI series products such as AI companion robots, AI recording hardware, and AI glasses. It now covers over 90% of mainstream AI glasses brands, including Meta, ByteDance, and Rokid, earning the nickname "Little Prince of AI Glasses." It provides end customers with comprehensive one-stop chip solutions covering audio, motors, and power & signal chains, seizing the initiative in the AI-driven transformation of smart hardware.
PART 02: Fully Automated Unmanned Production Lines—Building the Core Strengths of a Lighthouse Factory
Automotive-grade chips are subject to stringent performance standards, imposing extremely high demands on testing environments and equipment precision. From the civil construction stage, Awinic's automotive-grade testing center adopted a high-precision "three measurements, three acceptance" process to isolate interference from temperature and vibration at the source, fully meeting the testing requirements for high-precision automotive-grade chips and continuously strengthening the company's service and support capabilities for high-end chip manufacturing.
The production lines are fully equipped with Awinic's self-developed testing equipment (including the Honghu RF tester and Zhuque analog-digital tester), automated robots, and intelligent warehousing systems. Through unified IoT-based management of thousands of testing instruments, the facility enables 24/7 unmanned testing, achieving efficiency and data stability far superior to traditional laboratories, and establishing an energy-saving, low-carbon, and highly efficient intelligent testing production model. The automated pilot production line has now been debugged, with self-developed equipment scheduled for mass production delivery by the end of 2026. After the full production line becomes operational in 2027, the entire process—testing, sorting, and packaging—will be unmanned, establishing the facility as a leading fully automated intelligent verification base in China.
In terms of business layout, the platform is firmly rooted in the automotive sector as its core foundation, capable of undertaking testing and verification for various automotive-grade chips. At the same time, it offers open chip testing services for sectors including consumer electronics, industrial control, AI, broad energy, communications, and embodied intelligence. It provides one-stop technical services covering wafer testing, finished product testing, reliability assessment, and failure analysis, meeting the full-lifecycle verification needs of chip companies across multiple fields.
PART 03: Dual Barriers in Hardware and Software, Multiple Authoritative Certifications Pave the Way for Global Automotive-Grade Market Access
The facility has established dual competitive barriers through its "hardware platform + quality management system." In 2022, the center obtained CNAS laboratory accreditation, making it one of the first chip design companies in China to receive this qualification. In 2023, it successively achieved TUV NORD IATF 16949 automotive-grade quality certification and SGS ISO 26262 ASIL D, the highest functional safety certification, and became one of the few IC design enterprises in China to pass the CMMI DEV2.0 ML3 assessment. This enables the company to deliver compliant automotive-grade software and algorithm solutions. These multiple international certifications have paved the way for its products to enter the global automotive market.
Figure 3: Collection of Awinic's CNAS, TUV, and SGS system certifications
Notably, the center has been designated as both the "IC Testing and Inspection Service Platform" by the Lingang New Area and the "Shanghai IC Inspection and Testing Pilot Platform" by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization. These two official platform qualifications will enable the center to deeply empower the development of the regional IC industry. At the same time, the center is actively deepening industry-university-research collaboration through measures such as establishing university internship and training bases, contributing to professional teaching materials, and participating in undergraduate talent development. These multi-faceted initiatives bridge the gap between talent cultivation and actual industrial needs, continuously strengthening the talent foundation and driving momentum for the high-quality development of China's IC industry.
PART 04: Committing to Long-Term Development Goals and Jointly Building an Independent Ecosystem for Domestic Automotive-Grade Chips
The company will closely align with national strategies for intelligent connected vehicles and AI-enabled consumption. By leveraging self-developed chips and localized verification capabilities, it will empower scenarios such as human-vehicle-home connectivity, AI wearables, and industrial intelligence, while collaborating with upstream and downstream partners to improve the independent automotive-grade chip industry chain. Both the government and the company have reached a consensus to continue deepening cooperation in the future, jointly building a world-class IC industry cluster in Lingang. Through large-scale, intelligent, and localized verification capabilities, they aim to support the high-quality development of China's domestic IC and NEV industries.
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