Tesla backs $830 million Samsung plant for five-year supply deal

Tesla is backing $830 million of Samsung’s substrate plant in a deal that would secure five years of supply for Tesla’s humanoid robots and self-driving cars, according to a report by Maekyung, cited by Wccftech.

The report says NVIDIA and Tesla have paid Samsung nearly $3 billion to develop substrates for artificial intelligence chips. The companies are interested in the technology as substrates are expected to become a bottleneck in the AI supply chain.

The technology is called Flip Chip-Ball Grid Array (FC-BGA). It connects a chip die to a package substrate using solder bumps, with the die flipped upside down. The report says FC-BGA significantly improves performance compared with traditional technologies such as Plastic Ball Grid Array (PBGA).

The report also describes Tesla deepening its cooperation with Samsung to develop the Optimus humanoid robot. It mentions FC-BGA in connection with a chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) package.