Samsung spent $400 million to replace the Exynos 2500 with Snapdragon in the Galaxy S25

Samsung has dropped its own Exynos 2500 chip from its Galaxy S25 line of flagship smartphones and replaced it with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 processor for Galaxy, at a cost of $400 million. The main reason was the extremely low yields of year-old chips in production.

Samsung typically uses Exynos processors in most countries, including Europe, and Snapdragon processors only in the US, China and Canada. However, in the case of the Galaxy S25 and S25+, the company has taken the unprecedented decision of ditching the Exynos 2500 altogether and equipping all models with Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for Galaxy. The ultimate Galaxy S25 Ultra traditionally received the same chip in all regions.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra is the only Galaxy S25 model to get the same chip in all regions.

Samsung Foundry failed

According to insiders, the main problem was the Exynos 2500 chip yield rate was too low. Samsung Foundry simply couldn’t establish stable production at the required level, and the corporation had to urgently buy chips from Qualcomm. It is estimated that this cost Samsung about 400 million dollars – a considerable sum even for the technology giant.

Samsung is now focusing its efforts on developing the next generation, the Exynos 2600 chip, which is supposed to be manufactured using a 2nm process. However, at the current stage, trial production is showing alarming results: the yield of year-old chips is just 30%. Even if we assume that 60% would be acceptable, this has not yet been achieved. The goal is to reach at least 70%, which is considered the standard for mass production.

The repeated failure scenario could be costly

Samsung is keen to avoid a repeat of the situation where it had to buy third-party processors for the entire Galaxy S lineup. If the situation repeats itself with the Galaxy S26 in 2025, the company will again be forced to pay millions to Qualcomm for Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for the second-generation Galaxy.

Insider @Jukanlosreve reports that the Exynos 2600 will likely only appear in the European versions of the Galaxy S26 and S26+. He says an industry source claims that the second-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, manufactured using a 3nm process, outperforms the 2nm Exynos 2600 in terms of performance. That makes U.S. Galaxy models potentially more powerful than European models.

Samsung doesn’t have much time left

For the Exynos 2600 chip to make it into at least some of the Galaxy S26 models, Samsung needs to complete its development by the end of the third quarter of 2025. That will determine whether the company can go back to partially using its own solutions or whether it’ll have to rely entirely on Qualcomm again.

Samsung needs to finish development of the Exynos 2600 chip by the end of the third quarter of 2025.

The article Samsung spends $400 million to replace Exynos 2500 with Snapdragon in Galaxy S25 was first published on ITZine.ru.