Several things came together Samsung last year intervened in the company's attempt to build a 3nm Exynos 2500 application processor (AP) and use it on an upcoming flagship phone. Galaxy S25 series. The first thing, which we discussed before, is Samsung Foundry's poor throughput at 3nm. This will require Samsung to spend more money to acquire the number of expensive silicon chips it will need to build enough Exynos 2500 chips to supply it. Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ units everywhere except the US, China and Canada.

You might expect Samsung to fix Samsung Foundry throughput issues so that the Exynos 2600 AP can be used next year to power the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26+ in most markets. But it is rumored that something beyond Samsung's control may force the Korean manufacturer to use the Snapdragon chipset again in all Galaxy S26 units next year. One report says Arm is considering implementation As much as a 300% increase in the royalty payments per chip it collects from those who license its Arm v9 architecture.

Qualcomm is still paying Arm to license its instruction set architecture to ensure the San Diego-based fabless chip designer's semiconductors are compatible with Android, Arm-based software. But any price increase announced by Arm will not affect Qualcomm as much as it affects Samsung. The last It is used to produce custom cores for its Exynos chipsets; While that may help Samsung with pricing, the company stopped manufacturing custom cores in 2020 and there are no signs that it plans to resume that.

combination of Terribly low yields at the 3nm node by Samsung Foundry and Qualcomm's price increase for the Snapdragon 8 Elite may force Samsung to raise prices for Galaxy S25 series this year. The price of the Galaxy S26 line next year will depend on whether and by how much Arm raises royalties for the Arm v9 architecture. If Samsung decides to keep the Exynos 2600 processor, the main factor determining the price of the Galaxy S26 series will be how successful Samsung Foundry is in improving its production. At this point, everything is a mess.