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rewrite this title Qualcomm stops a major foundry from producing the AP for the Galaxy S26 Ultra

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Next year, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will be powered by the already unveiled Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm's new name for its flagship application processor (AP). It was originally expected to sport the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 moniker until Qualcomm made the change. Ever since Samsung Foundry's low yield forced Qualcomm to move production of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 AP from Samsung Foundry to TSMC (where it was slightly revised and given the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 name), the San Diego-based chip designer has relied on TSMC to produce the component.
There has been speculation that both TSMC and Samsung Foundry would dual source the 2026 Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 (which will be known as the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2). At one point, there was also talk of Samsung Foundry getting the gig itself using its new 2nm process node (SF2). But a leaker on “X” with the username @Jukanlosreve says that the plan to produce the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 at Samsung Foundry has been canceled.

Samsung Foundry's pathetic yields have cost it business for the last few years

Samsung Foundry's 2nm yield rate is unknown and hasn't been publicly revealed which leads us to imagine that the reason for the cancellation might be price-related. The first 2nm chips are going to be more expensive to make than 3nm which is probably why the Galaxy S26 Ultra will be powered by a 3nm AP and that is where Samsung Foundry's yield is a major issue.

Leaker says that TSMC will be the lone manufacturer of the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. | Image credit-X - Qualcomm stops a major foundry from producing the AP for the Galaxy S26 UltraLeaker says that TSMC will be the lone manufacturer of the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. | Image credit-X - Qualcomm stops a major foundry from producing the AP for the Galaxy S26 Ultra

Leaker says that TSMC will be the lone manufacturer of the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. | Image credit-X

A foundry's yield is the number of functional chips produced from a silicon wafer divided by the maximum number of chips that the wafer could have produced. Samsung Foundry's 20% yield for 3nm chips means that from a wafer that can produce 500 chips, Samsung Foundry is getting only 100 functional chips from it. The chip designer, in this case Qualcomm, would be financially responsible for the bad chips.

TSMC's yield at 3nm is said to be 84% which makes Qualcomm's decision a no-brainer even though Samsung Foundry's 3nm node includes Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors that surround the channel on all four sides reducing current leakage and hiking the drive current. TSMC's GAA transistors won't be used until the world's largest contract foundry starts shipping its own 2nm production.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite 2's benchmark test on Geekbench indicated that it will have a 20% CPU performance hike over the Snapdragon 8 Elite and the single-core score of 4000 will match the rival Dimensity 9500 SoC expected to be unveiled by MediaTek late next year. The Snapdragon 8 Elite enjoys a 30% hike in CPU performance compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC.

This is how Samsung Foundry's low yield will affect next year's Galaxy S25 series

Samsung Foundry's poor 3nm yield will also impact production of the Samsung Exynos 2500 AP which was expected to be found powering next year's Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25+ in the vast majority of markets. If nothing changes, Samsung might have the entire Galaxy S25 series, due out next January, powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite AP. Another less expensive possibility for Samsung is to use MediaTek's powerful Dimensity 9400 SoC for the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ models in some regions. This rumor has recently been shot down.
The last time Samsung used just one chip for its flagship Galaxy S series was back in 2023 when the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC was used on all of that year's Galaxy S23 units. This year, the Exynos 2400 powers the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ in all markets but the U.S., Canada, and China. In those markets, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 AP is under the hood of those models. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in all regions.

TSMC's yield advantage over Samsung Foundry is a major issue that Samsung needs to correct if it wants to attract new customers at 3nm and lower.

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