A foundry in crisis.
According to reports, Samsung’s Exynos 2500 chipset is trapped at the regrettable 20% yield level of the 3nm production node. It is quite doubtful that the Exynos 2500 will be included in the Galaxy S25 series at all because Samsung’s foundry hasn’t yet figured out the second-generation 3nm process used to build contemporary high-end mobile chipsets.
According to reports, Samsung granted itself a few more weeks to determine whether to divide the S25’s processing power between its proprietary Exynos 2500 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite (Gen 4) processor. However, the Exynos may not be doing well.
The Samsung foundry can only convert 20% of the wafers it uses into chips with the required quality to be used in retail electronics like Galaxy phones, and it must trash the great majority of its attempts at 3nm manufacture, according to local Korean media Sisa.
The Exynos 2400 in the Galaxy S24 is manufactured using a first-generation 3nm GAA process, which Samsung can currently achieve a 60% yield on. However, the second generation yield ranges around 20%, which is not only insufficient to attract large foundry customers like Qualcomm or Nvidia, but also insufficient for Samsung’s own phones that will sell in the millions.
In summary, the study asserts that Samsung’s foundry division is experiencing a crisis and that staff changes are imminent. This is bad news for Samsung because Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite (Gen 4) chipset will be the most costly part of the Galaxy S25, costing more than $200 per. However, it is not necessarily bad news for fans of the Galaxy S-line around the world who prefer Snapdragon chipsets that run faster and cooler.
For this reason, Samsung also looked at MediaTek for its Galaxy S25 series processor requirements. However, the new Dimensity 9400 chip may not provide enough yield to meet both the needs of everyone else in line for that flagship CPU and the needed numbers. But when the Galaxy S25 FE comes out next fall, it will finally run on it.
Although Samsung has expressed regret for the sorry state of affairs with its LSI chip division, it is unclear if the adjustments it promised will be enough to get the Exynos 2500 into the supply chain for the Galaxy S25 series of processors. With a yield of 20%, that seems less and less likely.