Samsung May Cooperate with MediaTek Due to Exynos 2500 Chip's Yield Rate Problem

TapTechNews reported on June 27, according to the Korean media FNN, that Samsung's Exynos 2500 chip fails to meet the mass production requirements due to its relatively low yield rate. Consequently, Samsung may cooperate with MediaTek to customize chips for the Galaxy S25 series phones.

Exynos 2500 Chip

TapTechNews reported on June 21 that the current yield rate of Samsung Electronics' Exynos 2500 chip is still slightly lower than 20%, and it is unclear whether it can be used in the Galaxy S25 series phones in the future.

Korean media reports indicate that Samsung Electronics generally starts mass-producing mobile phone SoCs only after the chip yield rate exceeds 60%. The current yield level is still quite a distance from this standard line.

Samsung has set the latest time for the mass production of the Exynos 2500 chip by the end of this year. Therefore, before September to October, Samsung's LSI department still has some time to improve the yield rate of the next-generation flagship self-developed mobile phone SoC.

Alternative Plans

There are two plans for Samsung to deal with the insufficient yield rate:

All models of the Galaxy S25 series phones will be equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 processor by default.

Samsung cooperates with MediaTek to customize the Dimensity chip for the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ phones.

This media believes that the possibility of Samsung choosing the latter is relatively large. One of the important factors is the price issue of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 processor. Due to the tight supply of TSMC 3nm causing a price increase, industry sources claim that the报价 of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 has increased by 25% compared to the previous generation.

According to sources, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 based on the N3E process has taken the lead in raising prices, with a 25% increase compared to the previous generation, expected to exceed $250 (about 1815 RMB currently).

There is more evidence that the supply price of MediaTek's chipset is lower than that of Qualcomm. According to the data released earlier in the first quarter of 2024, MediaTek had the highest chipset shipments in this quarter, about 114 million, but the profit was only $23 billion (about 167.348 billion RMB currently); while Qualcomm's chipset shipments in the same period were 75 million, and the profit was $37 billion (about 269.212 billion RMB currently).

Under the circumstance of Samsung's insufficient yield rate of its own Exynos 2500 chip and the significant price increase of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen4 chip, the cooperation with MediaTek also makes sense.