Samsung is apparently still contending with yield issues on its next-gen Exynos 2600 chip, which in conjunction with Samsung's existing agreements with Qualcomm, is likely to limit the chip's uptake to South Korea only, and that too for the non-Ultra Galaxy S26 models.
Samsung's Exynos 2600 deployment now being limited by lingering yield issues and existing contracts with Qualcomm
DigiTimes is now reporting that Samsung's in-house Exynos 2600 chip might only see a debut in its home market of South Korea. According to the publication, lingering yield issues, existing contracts with Qualcomm for its latest-gen Snapdragon SoC, and residual perception issues among consumers are all coalescing to limit the chip's uptake.
Do note that the Exynos 2600, manufactured using Samsung's new 2nm GAA process, delivers satisfactory performance due to features such as Heat Pass Block (HPB).
According to the latest reports, the Exynos 2600 is likely already on the production block, especially given the performance, efficiency, and area reduction figures of Samsung's 2nm GAA node when compared to the last-gen 3nm GAA one.
We reported earlier this week that Samsung might officially launch the Exynos 2600 in January 2026. Nonetheless, lingering yield issues, along with mandatory volume agreements with Qualcomm, are now likely to limit the Exynos 2600's uptake to South Korea. After all, Qualcomm's management had noted at a recent earnings call that it expected to maintain its new 75 percent baseline share with Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S26 series.
As for the last major hurdle, pertaining to the perception problem of the Exynos-series chips, Samsung seems to have ironed out most of the performance kinks that had become a bane for the previous generations of the SoC. According to the last available Geekbench 6 listing, the Exynos 2600 has managed to achieve a single-core and multi-core scores of 3,455 and 11,621, respectively, and that too with its highest core clocked at 3.80GHz.
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