Samsung Electronics’ non-memory business has reached a potential turning point after a prolonged slump. The company has effectively finalized plans to equip its flagship Galaxy S27 Pro smartphone, slated for release next year, with its in-house developed application processor (AP), the Exynos 2700. This move is expected to be a green light for improving earnings at the System LSI and Foundry divisions, which have long been considered Samsung’s “problem child” after racking up trillions of won in losses.<\/p>\n
According to semiconductor industry sources on the 6th, Samsung is pursuing a strategy to expand the application of Exynos chips not only to the base (S) and Plus models of the Galaxy S27 series but also to the Pro lineup. Specifically, the company will deploy a regional dual-AP strategy: the in-house Exynos 2700 will be installed in devices for global markets including South Korea and Europe, while Qualcomm’s Snapdragon will be supplied for the U.S. market. However, for the top-tier Ultra model, Samsung plans to use Snapdragon exclusively across all regions.<\/p>\n
This decision is viewed as a structural transition to gradually increase the proportion of Exynos chips across the flagship lineup. Samsung had excluded its own chips entirely from the Galaxy S25 series, opting for Qualcomm Snapdragon across all models. It signaled a return by reintroducing Exynos in the base and Plus models of the Galaxy S26 series launched this year. The plan for next year’s S27 series is to aggressively strengthen its proprietary AP ecosystem by expanding into the Pro model.<\/p>\n
The Exynos 2700 is a next-generation flagship AP being developed based on Samsung Foundry’s 2nd-generation 2-nanometer (SF2P) process. It is reportedly being designed with a “Side-by-Side (SBS)” structure that arranges the AP and DRAM horizontally, aiming to simultaneously achieve better thermal control and performance optimization.<\/p>\n
The expansion of Exynos adoption is likely to directly translate into improved earnings across the non-memory business, going beyond a simple volume adjustment. Exynos operates under a split structure where the System LSI division designs the chip and the Foundry division manufactures it. Therefore, increased adoption of the internal AP boosts the utilization of design assets while securing a stable operational base for the foundry lines. In the first quarter of this year, Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) division, which oversees the semiconductor business, posted revenue of 81.7 trillion won (approximately $57.2 billion). However, a severe structural imbalance persisted, with memory accounting for 74.8 trillion won while non-memory contributed just 6.9 trillion won.<\/p>\n
The mass production experience gained from internal volumes is also expected to create a virtuous cycle by strengthening the company’s ability to serve external customers. The process stability and design maturity data accumulated during large-scale smartphone production can serve as core evidence to prove yield rates and reliability in future foundry contract competitions.<\/p>\n
In fact, Samsung has recently been accelerating efforts to secure external clients. Electric vehicle maker Tesla is reportedly pursuing a plan to outsource production of its next-generation autonomous driving chips, the AI5 and AI6, to Samsung’s foundry. Anthropic, the developer of the generative AI model Claude, is also known to be in discussions with Samsung Electronics regarding the production of its own AI chips.<\/p>\n
“Expanding internal AP adoption is not just a volume adjustment but a structural change that simultaneously tests the design and production capabilities of System LSI and the foundry,” an industry official emphasized. “It will become a key benchmark for gauging Samsung Foundry’s competitiveness as it moves to expand its external AI semiconductor customer base.” The official added, “Ultimately, a full-fledged rebound in the foundry business will only be possible when advanced process stability is secured and aligned with large external customers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Electronics’ non-memory business has reached a potential turning point after a prolonged slump. The company has effectively…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[29279,41204,9651,33511,3245,16207,23122,127,276,13252,13575,2558],"class_list":["post-76071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-2-nanometer-process","tag-ai5-chip","tag-anthropic","tag-exynos-2700","tag-foundry","tag-galaxy-s27-pro","tag-qualcomm","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-snapdragon","tag-system-lsi","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}