Domain control unit shipments will boom in 2021.
When the one-to-one correspondence between the growing number of sensors and electronic control units (ECU) leads to underperforming vehicles and adds circuit complexity, more powerful centralized architectures like domain control unit (DCU) and multi-domain controller (MDC) come as an alternative to the distributed ones.
As concerns the tendency of domain controller, Vector conceives three stages of E/E architecture development: controller-centric, DCU, and central computer. Intelligent vehicle will ultimately be a mobile super computer and data center, and a new Wintel will come into being. In future, computing platform, operating system and application software will matter the most to the highly automated vehicles; multimedia multi-domain controllers and central domain controllers are likely to be combined into one.

In response to the disruption, Volkswagen plans adoption of a unified automotive E/E architecture; BMW will introduce central communication services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) in its next-generation E/E architecture; the smart vehicle architecture (SVA) launched by Aptiv breaks the bottleneck of conventional architectures, providing frame scalability for next-generation intelligent vehicles. The new E/E architectures will be built on the concept of central computer-layer-area, embodying the philosophy of SOA.
As to DCU, next-generation smart cockpit system based on cockpit DCU enables functionality of cockpit electronic system on a unified software and hardware platform. Cockpit electronic system offering intelligent interaction and scenarios as well as personalized services, will be a foundation for human-vehicle interaction and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication. Visteon argues that by 2023, intelligent cockpit integrated with LCD dashboard, center console and co-pilot infotainment system will be based entirely on single-ECU domain control platform.
Globally, Visteon, Continental, Bosch and Aptiv dominate the cockpit DCU market; Chinese players like Huawei, Desay SV, Shenzhen Hangsheng Electronics and Neusoft race to unveil their cockpit DCU solutions.
As for cockpit chip, typical products are comprised of Qualcomm 820A, Intel Atom, NXP i.MX8, Renesas R-CAR H3 and TI Jacinto family. Notably, the prevailing Qualcomm 820A processor platform has been ordered by 18 out of the 25 world-renowned OEMs, with the order intake recording $5.5 billion or so.

In the ADAS/AD DCU market, most of those in use for Level 1 driving assistance employ separate ECU to control. ADAS ECU which is developed mainly for Level 2 driving assistance is utilized to combine LDW/LKA and AEB. It is in the era of Level 2+, Level 3 and Level 4 automated driving that the demand for autonomous driving domain control unit (AD DCU) will be soaring.
Tier-1 suppliers worldwide already deploy ADAS/AD DCU such as Visteon DriveCore, Bosch DASy, Continental ADCU, ZF ProAI, Veoneer Zeus and Magna MAX4. In China, such typical products include iECU (co-developed by SAIC and TTTech), Huawei MDC (MobileData Center) intelligent driving DCU, IN-DRIVING TITAN, and Neusoft Reach CPDC-II DCU/CPDC-III central computer.
When it comes to autonomous driving chip, Nvidia is absolutely the leader with Nvidia Drive PX2 and Nvidia Drive Xavier being widely deployed by vendors. In December 2019, Nvidia introduced DRIVE AGX Orin, a software-defined platform for Level 5 automated driving, with nearly 7x the performance of the previous generation SoC Xaiver. The Orin SoC integrates NVIDIA’s next-generation GPU architecture and Arm Hercules CPU cores, as well as new deep learning and computer vision accelerators that, in aggregate, deliver 2,000 TOPS.

Other autonomous driving chips include TI TDA4, Qualcomm? Snapdragon Ride?, NXP S32 family, and Mobileye EyeQ family.

In the next three to five years, among DCU market segments, cockpit DCU will see a faster growth rate and a larger market than autonomous driving DCU because it is easier to spawn cockpit DCUs at lower cost; the surging demand for intelligent cockpits, which is fueled by the availability of 5G in vehicles, will drive up cockpit DCU shipments to explode in 2021 on the basis of OEM’s and Tier1’s progress in mass production.
In the ADAS/AD DCU field, inadequate regulations and immature technologies will expectedly make it hard to apply Level 3/Level 4 automated driving technologies on large scale in the upcoming three to five years. OEMs, tier-1 suppliers and chip vendors are working to mass produce L2+ autonomous vehicles. It is predicted that production of Level 3/Level 4 autonomous vehicles will peak around 2025, but business-oriented vehicles will play the key role, with roughly 5 million units of ADAD/AD DCUs for passenger cars to be shipped worldwide in 2025.
Automotive Digital Key Industry Trend Report, 2026
Digital Key Research: Automotive BLE, UWB and SLE Hardware Layout
The Automotive Digital Key Industry Trend Report, 2026, released by ResearchInChina, analyzes and predicts the digital key market, co...
Monthly Report on Automotive New Technology (May 2026)
UHD gaze technology, full-color LiDAR, UWB, etc. promote the upgrade of intelligent driving perception capabilities
This report is published once a month and is available for annual subscription.The...
In-Cabin Monitoring Systems (DMS, OMS, etc.) Research Report, 2026
In-Cabin Monitoring System Research: DMS to Become Mandatory in 2027, Expected to be Installed in Over 14 Million Vehicles
ResearchInChina released the In-Cabin Monitoring Systems (DMS, OMS, etc.) Re...
Automotive Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Cross-Domain Middleware Industry Report, 2026
Research on automotive SOA and cross-domain middleware: The era of AI atomic services and AI cross-domain fusion agents is coming.
Automotive SOA evolves towards AI + full SOA servitization Driv...
Automotive Display, Center Console and Cluster Industry Report, 2026
Automotive Display Research: Multi-Screen Application Slows Down, While OLED and MiniLED Are Introduced in Vehicles Quickly
In 2026, automotive displays will no longer excessively pursue the number a...
Global and China Intelligent Vehicle Standard System Construction and Certification Research Report, 2026
Intelligent Driving Standards and Certification: With the Maturing Standardization System, China Will Participate in Formulation of Global Standards
China's automotive industry is transforming from ...
Automotive Intelligent Diagnosis Industry Report, 2026
Automotive Intelligent Diagnosis Research: Powered by AI, Remote Diagnosis Is Being Upgraded towards Intelligence.
ResearchInChina released the Automotive Intelligent Diagnosis Industry Report, 2026....
Automotive Cloud Service Platform Research Report, 2026
Research on automotive cloud service platform: with architecture upgrade and computing power improvement, cloud services enter a new stage
In 2026, the Internet of Vehicles industry generates petaby...
Integrated Battery and Innovative Battery Technology Research Report, 2026
Power Battery Research: Sales of High-Capacity Vehicles Keep Rising, and Solid-State Batteries Begin to Be Installed in Vehicles
I. Sales of High-Capacity Vehicles Sustain Growth, and Those with A C...
Chinese Independent OEMs’ ADAS and Autonomous Driving Report, 2026
Research on OEMs' Intelligent Driving: Era of Physical AI, Standard Configuration of D2D, and Initial Exploration of L3 Commercial Pilot Projects
From 2023 to 2025, the intelligent driving installati...
Intelligent Vehicle New Technology Application Analysis Report, 2025-2026
New Technology Research: Innovative Products such as Bionic Cameras, Vision-LiDAR Fusion Sensors, Auditory Sensors Further Enhance Vehicle Perception Capabilities
ForewordResearchInChina released th...
Automotive Optical Fiber Communication (Optical Fiber Ethernet, PON) and Supply Chain Research Report, 2026
Research on Automotive Optical Fiber Communication: Introduction of Optical Fiber in Vehicles Accelerates, with Priority Deployment in High-Speed Communication Link (10+Gbps) Scenarios
Automotive opt...
Automotive Intelligent Cockpit SoC Research Report, 2026
Automotive Cockpit SoC Research: Passenger Cars in the Price Range of RMB100,000–200,000 Account for Nearly 50% of Total Sales, and New-Generation Cockpit SoC Products Largely Enter Mass Production
P...
LiDAR (Automotive, Pan-Robotics, etc.) Application Research Report, 2025-2026
LiDAR research: hardware competition shifts to combined sensing capabilities from "point cloud" to "images” and from automotive to robots The "LiDAR (Automotive, Pan-Robotics, ...
Global and China Passenger Car T-Box Market Report, 2026
Based on 2025 market data and the latest business layouts of OEMs and suppliers from 2025 to 2026, this report analyzes the development status quo and future trends of China’s passenger car T-Box mark...
Global and China Range Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Research Report, 2026
Research on REEVs and PHEVs: Foreign OEMs are considering extended-range technology as an important strategic option and will launch a series of new vehicles
Global PHEVs & REEVs tend to be domin...
Automotive Voice Industry Report, 2026
Automotive Voice Research: Explosive Growth in Features Like "See and Speak", 35-Fold Increase in External Voice Interaction in Two Years
ResearchInChina has released the Automotive Voice Industry R...
China Passenger Car Digital Chassis Research Report, 2026
Research on Digital Chassis: Leading OEMs Have Completed Configuration of Version 2.0 1. Leading OEMs Have Completed Configuration of Digital Chassis 2.0
By the degree of wired control of each c...