Samsung struggles with Exynos 2500 production, all Galaxy S25 units could switch to Snapdragon

Samsung was expected to launch the Galaxy S25 series in January 2025 with Exynos chips for the vanilla and Plus phones and Snapdragon for the Ultra.

Reports from Korea revealed this might not be the case, and the company may have to use Snapdragon chips across the whole portfolio. The reason is that Samsung is facing low yields of the Exynos 2500 chips and might be unable to manufacture enough units on time for the launch.

According to Business Korea, the Samsung Foundry has a “low yield” of the 3nm process but failed to quote exact numbers. In the chip industry, yield is never 100% as the rectangular chip is cut from a circular wafer, and there is always some waste. more importantly not all chips pass the quality certification nd that's why it varies from production line to production line.

If the report is correct and Samsung really goes for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 (also expected to arrive as Snapdragon 8 Elite), it would be yet another hit to the semiconductor business. The Korean company already lost orders from Nvidia and Apple, as these companies turned to TSMC for their AI-enabled chips.

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