If you are due a smartphone upgrade and were looking to get Samsung flagship next year, there appears to be some good news. Samsung is reportedly facing challenges with its inhouse Exynos chips and may be forced to use a different supplier for the entire S25 range.
If you didn’t know, Samsung not only produces TVs and smartphones. They also do insurance, banking, ship building and a whole lot of other unrelated things. One of those things is the manufacture of processors/chips.
Samsung chip making
Samsung has what they call a foundry, from which they produce chips. Companies like Intel and Qualcomm that design their own chips can (and have) contacted Samsung to produce the chips for them in the foundry.
Think of it like how you see an iPhone labeled ‘Designed by Apple in California.’ Apple works with companies like Foxconn who then build the phones for them. Samsung does the same for chip designers.
Samsung goes beyond that and designs its own chips which they then manufacture in their own foundry. As you can imagine, this is the best case scenario for old Sammy.
For those kinds of chips, Samsung doesn’t have to pay a designer or a manufacturer. This means higher margins on those homemade chips.
Samsung’s inhouse chips are called Exynos and we’ve had them for years. Chances are that if you have used a Samsung phone, you’ve used an Exynos chip. If you’re using a Galaxy S24, you’re probably using the Exynos 2400.
Exynos vs Snapdragon
The Exynos chips are not bad chips. I think S24 users can attest that they have a good experience with their phones.
However, there just happens to be a chip maker with better chips – Qualcomm and their Snapdragon chips. Most years, Snapdragon chips are a little more powerful and efficient. It’s small margins most times if we’re being honest, but it remains a fact.
There’s no problem in a competitor offering slightly better chips. The anger Samsung fans have over this though is that Samsung uses both the superior Snapdragon and the Exynos chips in the same models.
For example, this year, the American market got a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered Galaxy S24 whilst the rest of the world, including Zimbabwe, got one powered by the Exynos 2400.
So, same phone but different engines. Seeing as the processor is one of the most important components of a phone, can we say it’s the same phone if it has different processors in different regions?
Wherever you stand on that, it’s an annoying practice by Samsung.
Problems at the foundry?
There are reports that Samsung is facing problems in the manufacture of the Exynos 2500 chips that are to be used in the Galaxy S25.
Samsung is facing yield-related issues with its 3nm Exynos 2500 chips.
In simpler English that means a smaller than expected percentage of chips are passing quality certification during the manufacturing process.
This means that a significant portion of the chips are defective and must be discarded, leading to lower production output and potentially higher costs.
Although Samsung has not disclosed the exact yield figures, reports suggest that the low yields are a significant issue for the company and may impact the availability of the Exynos 2500 chip in the upcoming Galaxy S25 series smartphones.
If that comes true, then Samsung will be forced to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite in all Galaxy S25 phones, regardless of region.
If history serves, this will be a benefit for non-American Samsung users who will get to use the superior Snapdragon chip.
The Mediatek risk
Before you get too excited about the Snpadragon-powered S25, know that there are rumours that Samsung might be looking to use Mediatek processors in the S25 in some regions.
Mediatek is yet another chip manufacturer whose chips are competitive. However, Samsung hasn’t traditionally used any Mediatek processors in its flagship phones. So, it’s a bit of a shock that they could be considering this.
It shouldn’t be that shocking though because Sammy’s latest highest-end Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra tablet rocks the Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ processor.
So, it wouldn’t be that big of a shock if Sammy uses Mediatek in the S25. To be honest, just like with Exynos chip, regular users won’t really feel the difference or even care.
Why does Samsung do this?
It all goes down to cost. We talked about how Exynos chips are the cheapest for Samsung. Mediatek comes in cheaper than Snapdragon.
There are reports that the Mediatek Dimensity 9300+ costs $40 cheaper than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Now, Samsung sells millions of its flagships and so that is a meaningful amount of money.
For every million phones sold, Samsung saves $40 million if they go with Mediatek.
So, for Sammy it’s all about cutting costs. It’s too bad the users don’t get the best chip on the market. However, the question remains, if most people can’t tell the difference, is it such a bad thing that they are getting a slightly inferior chip?
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What’s your take?