Samsung is under pressure to choose the right processor for its Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26+ models. The company is aiming to include its Exynos 2600 chip in the flagship phones worldwide, but there’s a catch: Samsung’s foundry is facing yield issues that may force it to turn to Qualcomm for a third consecutive year.
This means that Samsung could end up paying millions more for Snapdragon chips instead of using its own Exynos SoCs, which raises the stakes for the upcoming launch.
Last year, Samsung reportedly spent an extra $400 million to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite for the Galaxy S25 series. This was necessary because the Exynos 2500 SoC was still underperforming. To avoid another costly scenario with the S26 lineup, Samsung is working hard to fix the yield issues at its foundry. Yield refers to the percentage of usable dies obtained from a silicon wafer, and a lower yield means more defective chips and higher production costs.
Initially, it was rumored that Samsung’s Exynos 2500 had a yield rate of only 30%, which made the production costs skyrocket. However, the Exynos 2600 prototype seems to show promise, as it scored impressively on Geekbench with 2400 points in single-core and 10200 points in multi-core performance. The multi-core result even surpassed Apple’s A18 Pro, despite the Exynos being built on Samsung’s 2nm process node while the A18 Pro uses TSMC’s 3nm node. This could mean better efficiency and performance from the Exynos chip.
However, comparing the Exynos 2600 with the A19 Pro, which will be built on TSMC’s 3nm node later this year, will be more accurate. There’s also a rumor that Samsung has changed the Exynos 2600’s core configuration. Instead of a deca-core (10 cores), it is now expected to feature 2 Cortex Prime “X” cores and 6 Cortex-A cores, making it an octa-core setup. This could affect power efficiency, which remains to be confirmed.
By the end of the year, Samsung must decide whether to stick with its Exynos chip or switch to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for Galaxy. The decision hinges on whether Samsung can boost its foundry’s yield rate to at least 60-70%, which is necessary to meet production requirements. If not, Qualcomm will power the Galaxy S26 and S26+ in all markets except for the U.S., China, and Canada, where the Exynos 2600 could still be used.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra, however, will always use the Snapdragon chip, no matter the region.