Samsung in talks with Tesla to make next-gen self-driving chips: Report

Samsung is reportedly in talks with Tesla to make next-generation self-driving chips based on Samsung's 7-nanometre chip production process.

According to the Korean Economic Daily, both the companies have discussed chip design multiple times and have also exchanged chip prototypes for the upcoming Hardware 4 self-driving system from Tesla.

The South Korean tech giant plans to mass produce the Tesla HW 4.0 chip at its main Hwasung plant in Korea using the 7-nanometer processing technology in the fourth quarter of this year at the earliest.

Earlier, a report claimed that Tesla planned for its next-generation self-driving chip to use a 7-nanometer process by TSMC, a Taiwan semiconductor company.

Samsung is currently the second-largest contract chip manufacturer in the world 17.3 per cent of the market share and TSMC leads the market with a massive 52.9 per cent market share.

Meanwhile, Tesla is expected to reach 1.3 million deliveries in 2022.

Analyst Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities said that he now expects Tesla to deliver 900,000 vehicles this year and grow to 1.3 million vehicles in 2022.

Ives believes that Tesla will benefit disproportionally from this transition to electric vehicles in the industry.

The automaker is apparently getting ahead of current supply chain issues plaguing the auto industry. Ahead of the start of 2021, some industry watchers thought it could be the year Tesla breaks a million deliveries.

However, like the rest of the auto industry, Tesla has been hit by supply chain problems.