Samsung’s foundry has secured its first chip manufacturing order from Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface venture, to produce the fourth-generation implantable BCI chip under the internal codename O1. Mass production is targeted for the end of 2027. Samsung began 4nm process development in late 2025 and entered trial production by May 2026.

Neuralink, founded in 2016, develops implantable devices that enable thought-controlled electronics via its proprietary N1 series. This new generation brings major upgrades in signal processing, miniaturization, and ultra-low power – all critical for long-term human implantation.

Medical-grade chip fabrication imposes far stricter standards than consumer silicon: low power, stability, high-precision neural signal acquisition, and biocompatibility must coexist on a tiny die. This order marks Samsung’s entry into the biochip foundry segment, a high-barrier niche beyond conventional logic chips.

Previously, Samsung signed a $16.5 billion long-term deal with Tesla for AI6 autonomous driving chips produced at its Taylor, Texas fab, covering humanoid robots and AI servers through 2033. With Neuralink, Samsung now covers two frontier domains under Musk’s umbrella: autonomous AI and neural biochips.

TSMC’s advanced capacity remains fully booked, prompting multiple tech giants to approach Samsung as an alternative. BYD is in talks for autonomous driving chips; Google plans TSMC for TPU cores but Samsung for I/O components paired with HBM, and is evaluating Samsung for 2028 Axion data center processors; AMD is also in discussions for future CPU foundry work.

From ICgoodFind: TSMC’s crowded fab is Samsung’s opportunity. From Tesla to Neuralink, and now Google/AMD in the pipeline – Samsung is building a real second-source arsenal for the AI-bio era.