Tesla Orders Chips for HW 5.0 from Samsung: Report

Tesla has ordered fifth-generation chips for its HW 5.0 from Samsung, according to the report. The news comes after Elon Musk met with Samsung executives in May.

Samsung to make Tesla HW 5.0 car chip

Samsung Electronics Co. will manufacture Tesla’s next-generation Full Self-Driving (FSD) chips. They will be used in Level-5 autonomous driving vehicles from the Texas-based manufacturer. The chips, which will be produced on Samsung’s 4nm node, will be used in Tesla Hardware 5 (HW 5.0) computers. The electric car maker plans to mass-produce them in three to four years, industry officials said on Tuesday, according to The Korea Economic Daily.

Tesla will partner with two companies

Tesla selected Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) as the sole partner for the production of the HW 5.0 automotive chip last year. However, now the company has also chosen to cooperate with Samsung. The manufacturer will partner with both companies but may opt out of TSMC entirely, industry officials said.

“Splitting next-generation chip production between the two is more likely though,” said one of the officials.

Elon Musk’s meeting with Samsung in May hinted at a collaboration

A possible collaboration between Tesla and Samsung began to be suspected in May. Samsung Chairman Jay Y. Lee met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk to discuss ways to strengthen the relationships between the companies. During their meeting at Samsung’s Silicon Valley Research Center in San Jose, Jay Y. Lee reportedly offered Musk terms, including lucrative contract prices, which he could not refuse.

Samsung officials at the time said the Lee-Musk meeting was about strengthening their technology partnership. In addition, it included the joint development of chips for fully autonomous vehicles. Samsung supplied Tesla with earlier versions of FSD chips for electric vehicles.

Samsung’s 4nm technology is getting better

Previously, Tesla selected TSMC as its next-generation FSD chip supplier. At the time, it was believed that Samsung was lagging behind the Taiwanese company in chip foundry performance on its advanced 4nm process node. However, industry experts have said that since then, Samsung has improved the performance of its foundry and it is now almost on par with TSMC.