South Korea’s local research institute recently pointed out that the Galaxy S26 series models equipped with the self-developed Exynos 2600 chip will continue to be sold only in Samsung’s domestic market, while most models for the world will still use Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor. The report believes that although Exynos 2600 is Samsung’s first 2nm GAA process flagship chip, and officials are fully confident in its performance and competitiveness, historical baggage in terms of safety, yield, and heat generation still make it difficult for it to go overseas on a large scale.
According to reports, Korean organization CTT Research analyzed as early as September that the reason why Exynos chips have been mainly used in Korean domestic models over the past many years, while the vast majority of overseas Galaxy S flagships use Qualcomm Snapdragon solutions, is that the core reasons include the risk of kernel security vulnerabilities, low chip mass production yields, and overheating issues. These factors have jointly limited the global promotion of the Exynos platform. Although Samsung positions the Exynos 2600 as a new generation flagship that can compete head-on with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Dimensity 9500 and Apple A19 Pro in its publicity, in terms of business strategy, it obviously still chooses a relatively conservative regional layout.
In terms of manufacturing, industry sources say that when the Exynos 2600 is mass-produced using Samsung's most advanced 2nm GAA process, the early wafer yield is about 50%, which is a significant improvement compared to the previous 3nm GAA process period, but there is still room for improvement from the ideal level suitable for large-scale global distribution. In order to alleviate the old problem of heating, Samsung has introduced a heat dissipation design called "Heat Pass Block" in the new chip, which is similar to integrating an additional layer of "micro heat dissipation block" on the chip die. Official executives have previously stated that this technology is expected to reduce the chip temperature by about 30%. At the same time, it is combined with the FOWLP fan-out packaging solution that has been applied for the first time on the Exynos 2400 to further optimize the heat dissipation and energy efficiency ratio.
However, even if there is a breakthrough at the technical level, the greater constraint on chip selection for the Galaxy S26 series comes from the commercial agreement with Qualcomm. The report pointed out that the terms of cooperation between the two parties require that about 75% of Galaxy S26 shipments must be equipped with Qualcomm's top contemporary SoC. This also means that Exynos 2600 can only account for about a quarter of the shipment structure, and is basically locked in the Korean domestic market. Once Samsung tries to increase the proportion of its own chips to reduce procurement costs, it may face the pressure of huge liquidated damages from Qualcomm.
After many generations of "Snapdragon exclusivity", Samsung has restarted its dual-chip strategy. It not only hopes to regain control of the high-end voice through its self-developed flagship SoC, but also aims to verify the maturity of the 2nm GAA platform through its own process and packaging technology. However, judging from the current arrangement, Exynos 2600 is more like a "partial launch" mainly for domestic users in South Korea. Before it can completely get rid of the three major shadows of safety, yield and heat, it is still far from returning to the global mainstream flagship stage. It obviously still needs time and further testing by the market.