Two major announcements from NXP Semiconductors underscore the company’s commitment to the growing automotive market in China. The initiatives see NXP establish a new China Automotive Technical Center to focus on R&D, system innovation and customer application support, and move its automotive sales and marketing headquarters to Shanghai. The move is part of NXP’s strategy to locate more of its customer-facing automotive operations closer to its fastest growing markets.

With the creation of the NXP China Automotive Technical Center in Shanghai, NXP is building a regional hub for technical excellence in automotive systems and applications. The company’s existing European Automotive Technical Centers are widely recognized as a cornerstone of NXP’s success in the automotive semiconductor market, building upon years of experience in In-Vehicle Networking, Sensors and RFID-based Automotive Security, and providing in depth technical support for customers on challenging issues such as Electromagnetic Compatibility.

Drue Freeman, Vice President Global Automotive Sales and Marketing at NXP Semiconductors, has formally relocated from Hamburg, Germany to Shanghai. He commented, “Shanghai is the ideal base for me to focus on further accelerating NXP’s growth in Automotive.” He continued, “In addition to the burgeoning domestic China market, all of our major European and American customers are establishing significant business and development operations in China. Furthermore, being in Shanghai will allow me to spend more time with our important Japanese and Korean customers as well.”

Over the next 12 months NXP expects to build up the NXP China Automotive Technical Center with more than 20 specialist engineers, who will work closely with their colleagues in the European Automotive Technical Centers as well as with local Tier 1 customers and domestic car OEMs.

“We want to bring the same level of leading-edge product and application expertise we have today in Europe directly to our customers in China,” said Kurt Sievers, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Automotive business, NXP Semiconductors. “We also want to ensure that the Chinese market requirements are being fully captured in our High Performance Mixed Signal innovation focusing on CO₂ reduction as well as Connected Mobility.”