Forget the Exynos 2500, Samsung may have also scrapped plans for the Exynos 2600. According to a reliable tipster, the company is likely to equip the Galaxy S26 series with Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 8 processor globally. The upcoming Galaxy S25 series is already expected to be powered exclusively by the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Samsung has been facing poor yields with the Exynos 2500 and may have canceled its mass production.
Even the Galaxy S26 could exclusively run a Snapdragon processor
Samsung has faced plenty of backlash over the years for underperforming flagship Exynos chips. The widening performance gap with rivals and user criticism forced the firm to cancel the Exynos 2300 for the Galaxy S23 series. It went back to the drawing board and came up with a notably improved Exynos 2400, which powered the Galaxy S24 and S24+ in several global markets. The Exynos 2500 looked set to bring more improvements.
However, Samsung’s foundry division upgraded to the 3nm GAA process and struggled to achieve healthy yields for the Exynos 2500. Its yields have been too poor for timely mass production before the Gaalxy S25 launch. The company may now ship the new flagships with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite globally like it did for the Galaxy S23 lineup. Worse yet, the Korean firm looks in no position to mass produce Exynos 2600 for the Galaxy S26.
According to the Korean media, Samsung will soon start the development of a new Exynos chip. Codenamed “Ulysses” — the Latinised name of the Greek mythological hero Odysseus — the chip will reportedly power the Galaxy S27 series in 2027. It will be a 2nm processor fabricated on the company’s SF2 process node, which uses the same GAA architecture. The report doesn’t talk about the Galaxy S26 series or the Exynos 2600 chip.
This suggests Samsung doesn’t expect its 3nm GAA yields to improve enough in a year. It might skip the Exynos 2600 and equip the Galaxy S26 series with the next Qualcomm flagship, presumably called the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. Leaker Ice Universe suggests so, though some say the 2026 Galaxy flagships might still have an Exynos version. We should get a clarification in the coming months, possibly after the Galaxy S25 launch in January.
