AIDC enters automotive electronics fields

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 25, 2006. It reports that Taiwan's largest aircraft maker, Aerospace Industrial Development Corp. (AIDC), recently announced its plans to diversify product lines and tap the automotive line, by setting up an automotive-electronics design center.

According to AIDC, it will more aggressively support the government policy of developing homegrown automobile platform. The company has set up an automotive-electronics lab. It plans to transplant its technologies and know-how with the 1553 Bus and flight control, which was adopted on the indigenous defense fighter (IDF) homegrown jet fighters, into automotive CAN Bus engineering. Furthermore, AIDC also aims to undertake technical cooperation with foreign partners and to develop a comprehensive CAN Bus system for the local automotive industry.

According to AIDC, its automotive-electronics design center has own five workshops. These are CAN Bus, auto-parts system design and development, wireless real-time surveillance, electrical systems and wire harness design engineering, and electronic component electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electro-magnetic compatibility (EMC) environment testing/inspection.

AIDC is confident that it can do more in automotive application market, because it is already well-known for its capability in fields such as avionics, aircraft-structure design and development, harness design, and system control and integration. "The next step for AIDC is to let us become a leading design house in the automotive industry," the company's representatives said.

According to AIDC, a modern passenger car is increasingly like a small aircraft with many advanced electronics control systems, many of which were developed on the basis of mature aerospace-related technologies. AIDC wants to be an active player in the automotive industry too, and will try to help local auto-parts makers upgrade their technical levels and enter big international automakers' supply chains.