Samsung Electro-Mechanics, the electronic component manufacturing arm of the Samsung Group, will reportedly supply a critical component for Qualcomm's first AI accelerator. The company has started mass production of Flip-Chip Ball Grid Array (FC-BGA) substrates, which are essential for packaging high-end semiconductor chips.According to a report from ZDNet Korea, Samsung Electro-Mechanics recently began manufacturing these FC-BGA substrates for the Qualcomm AI200 at its plant in Busan, South Korea. This supply deal marks a significant expansion of the partnership between Qualcomm and Samsung, moving beyond smartphone and PC chips into the data center market.FC-BGA package substrates connect the semiconductor chip to the main motherboard using microscopic flip-chip bumps. Compared to traditional wire bonding, FC-BGAs offer vastly superior electrical and thermal characteristics, making them ideal for high-performance computing.The specific FC-BGA substrate that Samsung is manufacturing for the Qualcomm AI200 features roughly 10 to 15 internal layers. This is slightly less complex than the 20+ layer substrates required by ultra-high-performance AI training accelerators (such as from AMD and Nvidia). Because the AI200 is specifically optimized for AI inference workloads rather than heavy training, it pairs with power-efficient LPDDR5 DRAM instead of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which reduces the complexity.The AI200 is Qualcomm's first data center AI accelerator, announced in October 2025 during the Snapdragon Summit 2025 event. It features Qualcomm's custom Oryon CPU cores and a Hexagon NPU. It is scheduled to launch in the second half of this year.While Samsung Electro-Mechanics is initially producing these substrates in smaller quantities, the partnership is expected to expand over time. Meanwhile, LG Innotek is also reportedly working to enter Qualcomm's FC-BGA supply chain for the AI200 by next year.